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I thought it might be haram to mix cheese and meat, but apparently that’s just a kosher restriction. Philly Cheesesteaks are perfectly halal.
You could probably make it kosher by using dairy-free "American slices."
Most "American Slices" do contain dairy, as it is a USDA requirement for the classification of "pasteurized process cheese product" that there is at least some cheese in the product.

I have made some exceptional vegan cheesesteaks with marinated seitan and pumpkin puree + nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce. The key is the bread - if you can head to a local bakery for a proper fresh hoagie roll, the rest will follow. I personally like grilled onions and Bavarian mustard on mine. Fantastic sandwich - just don't put lettuce and tomato on yours!

>that there is at least some cheese in the product.

Good start for cheese.

This:

    pumpkin puree + nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce
Do you have a recipe to share? That sounds very interesting!
A more charitable interpretation is that the quotes are around "American slices" because the dairy free ones aren't cheese. Dairy free imitations are well available.
“Kosher” rules have lots of “no mixing” rules that don’t apply to Islam.

Ultra Orthodox Jews even follow the rules about not mixing fabrics in clothes. There are even “kosher” fabrics.

I mean its in deuteronomy 22:11 explicitly. Orthodox jews are the ones who live by it, but you'd think anyone who believed in the bible would follow outright restrictions like that.

This in contrast to not mixing milk and meat, which is an expansion of "do not cook a kid in its mother's milk" from deuteronomy 14:21.

If you look at the two it would seem wearing linen and wool together is much worse than mixing milk and meat.

why is baffling, but thats religion.

it's certainly a fashion crime
>why is baffling, but thats religion.

For any given moral position you can keep asking why forever and never come to a satisfying conclusion unless you actually define what a moral is.

Is it just an aesthetic judgement on behavior? Is it a product of the ability to evoke pleasure & pain? Is it simply whatever you desire? Does the term even have any meaning at all?

I'm not sure I would describe mixing linen and wool as a moral position.
The moral position is against wearing fancy clothes that most can’t afford. Clothes are cheap now, but a modern parallel is to take a moral position against flying private jets.
Wonder if in the olden days, like flying private jets, the moral position on wearing fancy clothes were mostly held by those who cannot afford them.
In the case of things like Elizabethan sumptuary laws ( https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/proclamation-against-exce... ), it was definitely an old money vs new money thing. Conspicuous consumption was disruptive to the social order, and tended to force an "arms race" of spending which led to a sort of "precarious upper class" situation who could afford it only by going into debt.

Does anyone have a well sourced "origin story" for why mixed clothes might have been prohibited in Judaism?

That sounds like an expression of envy masquerading as moral uprightness.

It's one thing to dress modestly[0] and to exhibit moderation (circumstance will determine what is appropriate dress for the occasion, whether it is appropriate for one's station in life and within one's means, and so on). It is another to deny others goods simply because others do not have access to them. The latter is envy and a vice.

[0] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3169.htm

Religious edicts are inherently an expressions of morality
> Religious edicts are inherently an expressions of morality

That seems to misconstrue the nature of law, and we're talking about religious law here (though the distinction between religious and secular law is made first by Christ in Matthew 22:21). There is nothing inherently wrong about eating a cheeseburger per se. The combination of meat and cheese isn't intrinsically evil. So you have to ask what the purpose of these various restrictions are. Naturally, all law has a moral good in mind. That's what law does: it determines the moral or natural law within the given circumstances for a certain end, so a prudential element is involved (and still further in its application).

One answer is that these dietary and clothing restrictions exist as a discipline that perfects its practitioners spiritually. For example, Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays not because it is intrinsically immoral to eat meat on Fridays, but because canon law includes this restriction as an act of penance that is binding on all Catholics. Same with fasting required by canonical law. The discipline of self-denial, of the care shown to meet the law's requirements, its sacrificial nature, point to a higher end for which something is sacrificed. I mentioned penance, which is very important here, but the development of temperance is another, where temperance is the virtue of moderation and spiritual order, which is to say true freedom from the irrational, destructive, and slavish indulgence of the appetites that human beings easily fall into. There is also the cultivation of right obedience that conforming oneself to such practices facilitates. Willfulness is opposed to reason and reasonable faith and trust in divine providence, and human beings are well-versed in acting willfully and even against what they know is right (which is the definition of sin).

Another function of, e.g., Jewish dietary law was to set the Jews apart from other people in preparation for some divinely chosen end.

In any case, the point is that these prohibitions and restrictions are not necessarily condemnations of some behavior or practice as such, considered in itself. They can involve restricting practices that in themselves are morally good as an instrument for some other end. Sacrifice works that way. We sacrifice lower goods for higher goods.

For any given law there may be a preceding reason, but that reasoning is ultimately derived from some kind of base morality, hence my use of the term 'expressions'.

>One answer is that these dietary and clothing restrictions exist as a discipline that perfects its practitioners spiritually.

And what is the need to perfect oneself spiritually?

>Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays not because it is intrinsically immoral to eat meat on Fridays, but because canon law includes this restriction as an act of penance that is binding on all Catholics.

Penance is described by catholics as 'good', which is a moral judgement.

>We sacrifice lower goods for higher goods.

Right, but trading a lower good for a higher good is still an expression of morality, you're just preferring the greater good of the two.

You're probably thinking like a consequentialist[1], but they're thinking like deontologists[2]. They are two totally different philosophical viewpoints on how you determine what is ethical.

Consequentialism says you look at something's effects and work backward from there. Deontology says you do it by interpreting some moral code. (Usually one received by divine revelation from a source wiser than you, which is why you'd believe you should do it that way.)

Obviously you're free to reject deontological ethics, but It's more accurate to say "I disagree with how they do ethics" than to say "what they're doing is not ethics".

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology

if any arbitrary rule becomes ethics, then everything is ethics and nothing is ethics. Don't read outside becomes ethics, don't eat while standing becomes ethics, anything you can think of becomes ethics, and thus loses all meaning as ethics.

So I think its fair to say "random rules aren't ethics" instead of your qualification, which is what you get when you're so mired in the names of things you don't think that people can make statements on whether something is ethics or not, which is outright not true.

Except that religious rules aren't 'random rules', they're believed to be of divine origin, there's no meaningful distinction between 'divine rules' and 'divine ethics', but there is a distinction between 'rules' and 'ethics'.
> you don't think that people can make statements on whether something is ethics or not

Ethics are subjective, not objective. I think people can make statements on whether something fits within their definition of ethics.

If you can think of an objective way to define ethics, one that all reasonable people operating in good faith would agree with once they heard it, then you'll have done something no philosopher has ever achieved.

Ethics are a function of values. First you place values on different things, like happiness or virtue or the preservation of life or obedience to god (if you think there is one). Then you work out the implications of how those values influence the decisions you make, and then you have ethics.

As long as you're doing this process, it's ethics. It's somewhat analogous to math in that once you define some axioms, then you can do math. Different people might choose different axioms, after which they won't agree on everything, but they're both still doing math.

> define what a moral is

Morality is a composite of several concepts.

(A) You start with pain and pleasure -- the definitions I use for those words cover every living thing that tries to achieve homeostasis, with pleasure being moving towards and pain as moving against. This covers pretty much every living thing, including microbes, plants etc.

(B) Sufficiently social creatures create a meta organism (the society.) Virtue and vice are the pleasure and pain of this meta organism, respectively. As an aside, this can clash with (A). Consider the soldier jumping on a grenade to protect comrades (painful-virtuous), or the sexual deviant (pleasurable-vice.) As virtue and vice are a function of a given society at a given time, that is why many say morality is relativistic.

(C) Sufficiently intelligent creatures have the ability to mirror neurons; empathy in other words. Apply this ability to (A) to create the rules for the nodes that represent (B.)

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> Orthodox jews are the ones who live by it, but you'd think anyone who believed in the bible would follow outright restrictions like that.

Both Christianity and Islam preserve a place for Jews as Jews in their theology. Only Jews are expected to be required to obey all the rules in the received scripture. Which components of the Jewish law are considered to apply to non-Jews, or carried forward as part of the newer revelation, depends on their interpretation, including the function or purpose they're understood to serve.

Conversely, Judaism itself has both concepts and literal rules for determining and justifying which rules (or derivatives) are supposed to be applied to non-Jews.

Also, though I'm not sure about Islam's perspective, both Judaism and Christianity understand Jews to have (present tense) a unique relationship to God, and part of that relationship demands Jewish obeyance, at least part, purely for the sake of manifesting that relationship. So if God commanded Jews to stand on their head, it doesn't matter whether that rule served some efficacious esoteric purpose; the pertinent function of the rule from an earthly perspective is defining and distinguishing who is a Jew, and especially an observant Jew. If you're commanded to stand on your head, you stand on your hand without asking questions; subservience--faithfulness--is the point.

> but you'd think anyone who believed in the bible would follow outright restrictions like that.

Many churches and certainly the big catholic one interpret the word of god for their believers (this is called magisterium), so if you are catholic, you don't believe in the bible but in the particular interpretation. And the differences are huge.

> so if you are catholic, you don't believe in the bible but in the particular interpretation.

Any reading of the Bible is an interpretation. It makes no sense to speak of ANY text, or any spoken word, apart from interpretation. All of them are interpreted. So the question really is: do you have the correct, or at least a licit, interpretation? The Catholic Church interprets Scripture through the lens of unbroken tradition. Compare this with the 40,000 Protestant sects in the US alone, most of which interpret things however they want. That doesn't even touch on the question of translation, as well as how one translation may render something more accurately than another.

And, of course, there's the other bit, namely, that the Bible was compiled by the Catholic Church, again, through the lens of tradition. How else are you going to determine which gospels are reliable and worthy of being made canonical, which books are apocryphal, which are fabrications, and so on, if you don't rely on something parallel to and 'outside' the text? (Luther did somehow manage to convince himself that he was qualified to 'tweak' the Bible, but I'll leave it at that.)

There's the added wrinkle that sola scriptura is, ah, kinda difficult to support using only the Bible. It's easier to argue against it, using the Bible as your only source, than to argue for it. Which is a bit awkward.
> The Catholic Church interprets Scripture through the lens of unbroken tradition.

Yeah and also always promoting its own power. So when the Bible explicitly says the bishops should be married men, the Church says actually no we don't like that because it would lessen our power over the bishops so let's make them celibate. Thus making lots of people very unhappy and some commit horrible crimes. How can anyone believe the Church's interpretation is correct is completely beyond me.

> you'd think anyone who believed in the bible would follow outright restrictions like that.

I wish people would not make blanket assumptions. A portion of the New Testament is committed to explaining that certain parts of the Old Testament laws were for the Israelites only.

Bit silly if you ask me. Why even keep the old Testament. Should be culled.
Matthew 5:18 incorporates it by immutable reference.
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Salmon cheesesteaks are a thing in phillys african american and Muslim neighborhoods.
Reminds me of the Tribal People Try channel.

Some fun ones:

Tribal People Try Spicy Korean Ramen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttRFYZXwddc

Tribal People Discovering Cheesecake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iYQxH2-VM8

Tribal People Try McDonald's Breakfast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7oSDvuLjNE

Edit: Must admit the channel seems real/genuine although might be perhaps a bit exaggerated/click friendly.

They interview some of the people near their homes, etc. and it seems pretty honest - Chaudhary Rafique's Home Tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy9n0y9L7K8

Yes, my household loves this channel! I’d like to hang out with these guys, let them share some local food and traditions and share side of my favorites.
My new favourite channel lol
The taste testers seem to really enjoy the Filipino Lumpia.
Indian here, a few years back I was in USA for some work. It was Ramadan, so somebody from my extended family stays in Philadelphia, so decided to celebrate Eid with their family. I went to their home a few days earlier. And my uncle drove me around Philly, like around famous tourist attractions etc. When it was end of day he asked me if I wanted to get something special for Iftar(breaking fast). I was like lets have some local delicacies.

He takes me to this place where they were selling Philly Cheasesteakes, sold by Pakistanis(because 'halal'). It kind of blew me away when I learned nearly most of the halal PCs sold there were by Pakistanis. I guess the diaspora that returned to their country might have taken the delicacy to Lahore?

The Philly Cheasesteak itself was super delicious though. Couldn't stop eating and I went back to that place the next two evenings as well.

I always found it interesting that my favorite local philly cheese-steak shop in Durham NC is run by a gentleman from Afghanistan. I always wondered if that was completely random or if there was some special connection at work, but never got around to asking.
What was the place? Worked in Philly a year and I don’t think I ever ran into this. Sounds delicious.
Seconding, I visited the neighborhoods where this ought to be often and am curious.
I have forgotten where to be honest, I also had ice cream at some famous place which looked ancient. Can't remember the name. But its supposed to be a super old shop going decades back. I do remember where I offered the Eid prayers. It was some mosque in a place called Devon. I guess it was some where around that place. There was also an Eid social meet up in a open ground right after(don't remember the name), but lots of Pakistanis and Indians seem to be present there. And lots of Sub continent snacks like Samosas were served.

I also had a Philly Chesesteak in New York in some food truck right at the exit of One World Trade Center building. And I guess that was run by some Arab person. That was delicious too.

If we are listing places nobody will be able to find, let me add that there is also a fantastic Chinese restaurant somewhere within a few blocks of 7th and market where we had a great Christmas Day lunch a few years ago.
I was able to locate the Ice Cream shop. Its called The Franklin Fountain at 116 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

The area around the mosque is called Valley Forge. And its beautiful. Its also has some history associated with it(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge). I'm sorry no matter how much ghost walked these places. I just couldn't find the Chesesteak place.

Food trucks I guess are available all over New York, or may be I got lucky to find one right outside One World Trade Center.

Is this not Han dynasty? it’s rather well-known
It wasn't Han Dynasty but now I have a new place to try.
Lived in Philly for a few years and my family is from there.

Makes sense that the Cheesesteak would be a popular export. Its origins are Italian, and like other Italian foods you can make it anywhere if you get the prep and the ingredients right. It's also heavily customizable and can last a while like pizza.

IMO getting the bread right is the hard part, but I imagine a good chef will recognize that quickly. Philly has special bakeries that supply a lot of the steak places (Amorosos, etc).

Also I'm sorry but cheese wiz is disgusting. Get Provolone :).

> heavily customizable

I like cheesesteaks every once in a while, but the green chile versions around the US Southwest were my absolute favorite. I wish I could get them where live now. The tikka version mentioned in the article really piqued my interest though.

There is a restaurant that makes Indian spiced chicken cheese steaks in Philly that’s gotten very popular. Try this recipe with your choice of meat, it’s not a tikka version but it’s delicious!

https://thechutneylife.com/recipes/dinner/spicy-chicken-chee...

I love this. When reading the article about people using south asian spices for cheesesteaks, I thought, gee that sounds amazing possibly even an improvement, I'd like to try that... and now I can get it philly too!

Humans can't resist mixing food cultures. And music. Always where the best stuff comes from.

> IMO getting the bread right is the hard part

Do you have a good recipe? I've been wanting to add a really authentic Philly Cheesesteak to our menu at our bakery here in Vietnam but I don't have a lot of experience with that particular sandwich.

I know the American expats here would appreciate if we get it right though.

I'm not from Philly, but my mom is, and every time I went back east I ate plenty of cheese steaks. To me, the essense of the bread is a chewyness, a toothiness. The crumb is substantial, the crust is minimal. If you bake bread in Vietnam than you must have a good understanding of a french-style baguette, right? That's a bread where the crust is shattering-crisp and the internal crumb is light and pillowy, yeah? The roll for a cheese steak is the opposite.

My grandmom's theory was that it was the water from the Schuylkill that made the rolls inimitable. I wish I had a recipe I could share with you, but instead I can only wish you luck.

Ah man, despite baking a lot, I've never tried to make the bread myself.

You're going to want a hoagie roll [1][2]. They are shaped like a baguette and have the same ingredients, but way softer, chewy-er and denser. It's a process with multiple rises, then it's baked in steam to keep it soft.

This [3] seems to get the details right, but I haven't tried it. Conshohocken is a suburb outside of Philly known for microbreweries and baking so it's legit if that's the source.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagie_roll

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8oA5ACqPg

[3] https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21448/real-italian-hoagie-...

It sounds like Italian ciabatta might work. It is a great cold sandwich bread with many of the same properties that you describe. I've seen smaller ciabatta rolls in a wide variety of sizes. It should be possible to create the "hoagie" shape.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciabatta

Ciabatta is great but it has nothing to do with a Philly cheesesteak roll. Like so far away as to be from another dimension. A Subway roll would be closer.

You want a soft roll, not actually dense, despite GP’s statement but not airy like sourdough. In texture it’s closer to a hamburger or hotdog bun. In size and shape it’s like a sub or a hero.

Traditional ciabatta is a very wet, kinda shapeless dough; hydration level is high enough that it can't really hold a shape outside of flat blob. High hydration makes it easier for the yeast to eat the carbs, and allows the loaf to absorb more air.

Hogie rolls are long and soft, closer to baguette but with softer (less protein) flour and some light steam during the bake.

You could probably hack it with a baguette recipe subbing some AP flour, and baking at a slightly lower temp with a pan of water under the baking sheet.

edit: I also had some success in the past with a naan recipe that I didn't have time to cook w/ a flat-top, and rolled into vaguely hogie shapes. It had yougurt and a small amount of canola oil, which kept it soft -- that might be an option.

A banh mi roll would work pretty well.
Yeah the banh mi roll is a modification on the french roll with the exact same goal that you want for a philly cheesesteak I bet.
Good call. I love philly cheesesteaks, but honestly I don't find the roll all that special (and yes I've had it at the classic places in philly). I think a typical vietnamese banh mi roll is probably going to be honestly better and work great for the sandwich.
Disagree. I've had them in Saigon in addition to here in the States, and a good banh mi roll is much crispier on the outside. That's not the texture you want for a cheese steak -- it has to be really soft.
No. Banh mi is too crusty. The best cheesesteaks have a mushy roll, NOT a crusty one.
I live near Philly and the Vietnamese grocery stores in town all sell hoagie rolls relabeled as bahn mi rolls. So if it works one way it probably works the other.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Steaming the roll is essential to a good cheesesteak. Even more than the bread after you've met a certain floor.

Apparently there is 1 Subway restaurant in Vietnam. You can go there to get an idea of what a hoagie roll is. Also make sure the steak is in strips. I ordered a cheesesteak in Helsinki recently and they used cubes of steak. It was weird.
The quintessential Philly cheesesteak bread is the Amarosso roll. There’s even a place in SF that imports them as well as tasty kakes for the PA “expats” in California.

https://www.amorosobaking.com/

>Amoroso’s bakery products can be flash-frozen and shipped worldwide

Cool, I didn't know that.

>a place in SF

Maybe you are referring to The Cheesesteak Shop (est. 1982) which has 20 or so locations in the SF Bay Area.

Incidentally, I find the default cheese when you order in person (white American cheese) is better than provolone.

That's the one! My favorite memory of SF was getting cheesesteaks and kandykakes from there and eating them on ocean beach while watching the whales breach at sunset with my wife. Perfect day.
+1 white American melts better than Provolone, and definitely works better in a cheesesteak. Both are preferable to "wiz" which is honestly pretty gross.
I think we can all agree amoroso roll + white American is where it's at. But what about the rest? For me, it's mayo + fried onions (white or red) + green peppers + mushrooms. Hold the lettuce and tomato. And for the love of god no red sauce -- if I wanted sauce I'd eat spaghetti!
I'm originally from Philly, and I've had a cheesesteak on banh mi roll a few times. It makes a very good approximation at least to me. The Philly rolls tend to be tougher and ready to handy the sheer amount of grease that pours off the sandwich. Stick to provolone and caramelized onions as the only default toppings. Ketchup and such should be added by the eater, and realistically only if it's a bad steak.
Agree about cheese wiz being gross, but American cheese is fine too. I do like provolone + marinara sauce ("pizza steak"), though.

(I've had better steaks in Philly suburbs and NJ than in the city itself, too.)

It's wild but true, the best steaks are out in the suburbs
how often should one eat a philly cheesesteak? i feel like the answer is “almost never” given the high amount of beef + cheese (calories, fat, etc.)

typical philly cheesesteak is like… 800-1600 calories from what i can tell and not very much nutritional value. am i being dramatic?

As often as you feel like.
Isn't there strong evidence in obesity + heart disease cases that this is a poor decision?
Cheesesteaks don't happen in a vacuum. What's your breakfast look like? Dinner?

Wake up and shovel donuts into your face, and then pack a bunch more carbs and fat at dinner and yeah that cheesesteak will definitely help kill you.

Eating mostly veggies and reasonable choices + a couple of cheesesteaks a week and you'll be alright.

Depends. Do you sit on your ass all day long, or are you working physically hard outside?
An occasional cheesesteak won't kill you.
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When I worked in old city Philly, I'd get one (a pizza steak for me tyvm) probably twice a month - in between the halal cart, pizza, wraps & frites from European Republic, and a nicer lunch from nearby restaurants on Friday.
You can have a large meal every once in a while without large negative health effects. Just limit your calories the rest of the day and don’t do it all the time.

Also, I wouldn’t say it has little nutritional value…it’s full of protein and carbs (which are nutrients).

I guess my question was from a stance of, Philadelphia is famous for their cheesesteaks. How often are the residents that live there truly having a cheesesteak? Once a month? Three times a week?
I would say Philly is famous for it's food generally. Philly is one of the best places in the northeast to get high quality food at reasonable prices. Especially sandwiches.

Speaking strictly for myself, it's like a game day thing, but when I was younger it was up to twice a week. If you get full you can eat half and stick the other half in the fridge. Now a days if I'm doing a steak later in the day, it means I'm skipping a meal beforehand. I'll also ask them to add vegetables so it makes you feel full faster.

The big differentiator isn't really the calories but the cost. Like other Philly food, it's very affordable for not being fast food. It also gets cheaper if you order it in batches for parties, and it keeps super well so there are always leftovers. Because of this you just see it around Philly a lot.

Depends how old you are and what you're doing with your life. The construction workers might eat one several times a week from a cart. An office worker might only eat one late at night as 2 am food after the bars closed. When I was in college there maybe once a month. The under appreciated chicken cheese steak is probably worse for you.
Pat or Geno?
Both are tourist trap trash. They are the kind of place where you order wiz and think you're getting something good and authentic, but its really something created for tourists that can be sold with cheap ingredients at a marked up price. They are overpriced and only enjoyable if you've only ever had cheesesteaks at places like Subway and other locations that call them "steak and cheese" subs.

Its been a while since I lived in Philly, but have visited regularly since graduating college (2012). The best I had when I lived there was Joe's under its previously extremely racist name, followed closely by Jim's.

Recently took a friend from out of the country to Philly for her first cheesesteak and although I enjoyed Jim's still, she didn't understand the hype for a cheesesteak, so we avoided them the rest of the week.

Took her to Joe's on Torresdale as we were leaving the city (apparently one month before that location closed forever in favor of a more popular area), and she finally understood why it was a famous regional dish. Their cheesesteaks are amazing.

Also I'm completely convinced that the internet hype around broccoli rabes is a completely made up SEO infecting real life phenomena. None of my friends from college who grew up in Philly had ever had one when I asked about it and when we made treks to the various "famous" locations, everyone was just mad we didn't spend the gas on getting cheesesteaks instead. The best cheesesteaks in the city are pretty established since the 80s and people have their opinions pretty set in stone so b/vloggers don't have much to write about outside of hyping up something that isn't popular.

Jim's was my favorite spot. A friend just told me a few days ago that it apparently burnt down last year? I'm sad I didn't get to go back one more time. Hope they can open a new place.
Looks like they're rebuilding on the same corner.
> Also I'm completely convinced that the internet hype around broccoli rabes is a completely made up SEO infecting real life phenomena. None of my friends from college who grew up in Philly had ever had one

Like, roast pork with broccoli rabe? My family are from South Philly and I can attest that those have been around for a long time and are indeed delicious.

The real appeal is the pork and provolone, the broccoli rabe is ancillary. I used to eat those sandwiches every week, though I never burned any gas getting there. Nor going to any cheese steak shop for that matter, the best cheese steak at any particular moment in Philly was whatever shop is within the closest walking distance. It's a convenient food you get when you're not in the mood for an expedition. The pork sandwiches are more expedition worthy, IMO.
They are the only real options at 2 am and "trash" is subjective. They are solid 7/10.

Best cheesesteak in the city is from Rocco's in the Home Depot in South Philly. I'm not kidding.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5VLTDvWpxgDegCXv6

> Rocco's in the Home Depot in South Philly

For the longest while, I'd refer people to the tiny Mexican "restaurant" in the back of the gas station at the intersection of Hwy 41 & Pioneer Trail in Chaska, MN for their amazing food, so I get what you're saying.

Sadly, they are long gone!

John’s. Go with someone else. Order a roast pork and a cheesesteak. Enjoy.
Dalessandro's. Granted, it's been a couple of decades since I last visited, but they were (and still seem to be) an institution.
Great place, but it has completely blown up and there's always a wait now. Can't even sit inside anymore I think.
Many years a philadelphian. Provolone and thin sliced ribeye is easy to come by. A good roll is not! I just can't get any good rolls even two hours from Philly

Long live the Carangi Roll!

Theres a cheesesteak place here in London run by some Philadelphians, and they said they have to make it from scratch, it's just impossible to get the right bread anywhere in the UK.
Anyone that’s been to Lahore will attest to how crazy the Lahori nation is about food. You simply can’t wrong with food in that city. Glad Philly Cheesesteak launched a joint there!
Shinwari BBQ is on another level
+inf. Now I can’t stop thinking of Zakir Tikka.
USA should import indian plant-based food, not the other way around.

If India / Asia starts eating as much meat/dairy as Americans/Europeans do, we're @#$%^&*.

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-type?coun...

> indian plant-based food

In India, they just call it food. About 40% of Indians are vegetarian[1].

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/08/eight-in-te...

And the vegetarian / vegan food in India is fantastic!
A lot of them because they are making a virtue out of necessity (vegeterian food being cheaper). The cultural aspects on top are the dressing.
> vegeterian food being cheaper

This is how it should be everywhere. Non-vegetarian food is massively subsidised in the West. A Big Mac ought to cost tens of dollars, not five.

Of course. I was more pointing to the fact that they can't afford it as much (so the wages/meat price gap), as opposed to the relative price difference with vegetables.

But of course, vegetables and such should be cheaper than meat.

I'm really starting to resent the dumping of responsibility on the average guy. We can't even enjoy a steak sandwich any more without having guilt shoved down our throat even though we are responsible for minimal environmental impact.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-m...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56723560

The media keeps picking on my stakes, ICE engines, decently warm home, etc, because they get paid to divert attention. And then the naive do gooders pick it up and hammer their fellow working class citizens. For what? If everybody on my level makes his life 50% less comfortable we won't even make a single digit percent dent on the environment impact.

Don't shit on the environment. Don't leave the lights and heating on for no reason, don't throw trash in nature, don't get a 7 liter engine for in town driving and so on. Those are the only kind of things an average guy can realistically do. And most of it he can't afford to do anyway. But when you come after my steak sandwich this is where I draw the line.

> We can't even enjoy a steak sandwich any more without having guilt shoved down our throat even though we are responsible for minimal environmental impact.

You can enjoy it all you want if you take responsibility for its consequences. Right now the externalities of a lot of our actions are not taken into account for many things, and so the people who suffer the consequences are not the ones that are enjoying the benefits.

Actually, i can enjoy it without taking responsibility and you literally can't stop me
No but we can judge you for it, and you can't stop us.
How many steak sandwiches are you eating?!
One, and apparently that is one too many for some people.
But this carbon fossil producers and this huge ships are producing/carrying stuff for the average person. So yeah, the average guy needs to change and the big corps need to change too.
I remember talking to my old boss, who was something of an "old money" type, about summer holiday plans, some time in the middle of last decade. My then-girlfriend and I were going by bus to Berlin, 600km or so, to hang out, see Archaeopteryx and eat cheap food. He was going skiing in Japan - half a world away - and staying in some futuristic hotel, going by helicopter every day to and from the "really good slopes".

I was a strict vegetarian at the time, but I wonder how many döners a helicopter ride is.

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I think you're misunderstanding the articles...

> https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

you're saying that the big polluters are Shell and Aramco, and then complaining that we're asking you to stop using ICE engines? Who do you think Shell are selling all this oil to?

> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56723560

"The wealthiest 5% alone – the so-called “polluter elite” - contributed 37% of emissions growth between 1990 and 2015."

Given the forum we are conversing in, I'm pretty certain we're all in the world's wealthiest 5%..

> Don't shit on the environment. Don't leave the lights and heating on for no reason, don't throw trash in nature, don't get a 7 liter engine for in town driving and so on. Those are the only kind of things an average guy can realistically do. And most of it he can't afford to do anyway. But when you come after my steak sandwich this is where I draw the line.

So basically, "don't make me do anything I don't want to do" ?

> Who do you think Shell are selling all this oil to?

Commercial and industrial entities. Retail for cars is little by comparison. See the 15 ships vs all the cars article.

> Given the forum we are conversing in, I'm pretty certain we're all in the world's wealthiest 5%..

What can I even say here? Why are you speaking for me?

> So basically, "don't make me do anything I don't want to do" ?

You don't need to maliciously "summarize" my arguments. I have already done so in the first sentence of the paragraph. And that was "Don't shit on the environment."

> I think you're misunderstanding the articles...

And I think you are trying really hard to misunderstand what I'm saying just for internet points.

> Commercial and industrial entities.

And who are they selling to? At the end of the day, it's feeding us, the consumers

> What can I even say here? Why are you speaking for me?

An annual home/family income of more than 50k USD before tax puts you in this 5%. I think this covers the vast majority of people here

> And who are they selling to? At the end of the day, it's feeding us, the consumers

We where talking about personal ICE cars. Now you're switching it up to try to win the argument. I'm done with you as you are not replying in good faith.

> An annual home/family income of more than 50k USD before tax puts you in this 5%. I think this covers the vast majority of people here

And I still think you should only speak for yourself as regards to income. You pompous self righteous ignorant american.

> Commercial and industrial entities

That's kind of obfuscatory though. It's kinda like arguing that supermarkets are the ones responsible for bio-industry because they're the ones who buy so much meat from the farmers, while ignoring the demand created by their customers.

No it's not. We where talking about the ICE engines for the average Joe car which are under media and regulatory attack. The 15 ships that pollute as much as all the cars are not under scrutiny. They could make them less polluting, but that would cut into the profits.

The argument is no way similar to meat and supermarkets, because no consumer demands that his goods be shipped with two stroke diesel engines that burn what is basically crude oil.

I see what you're saying. To me the conversation was more about "should individual consumers worry about their carbon impact while there are much bigger idustrial polluters?"

As I understood it regulating the ships is made difficult because they stay in international waters and off-load their cargoes onto small ships for the last leg of the deliveries. The companies maximise their profits because that's what companies do. If you have ideas about how to regulate against their pollution I'd (genuinely) be very glad to hear them.

With the meat thing, I basically look at purchasing as voting. If you buy goods shipped from around the world and you understand what that means from a pollution perspective then you're effectively voting for it to continue happening.

Personally I try to consider these things when making decisions. Not everyone is in the position to have the time or opportunity to look for alternatives and that's fine, but personally I find having that luxury and not taking it to be morally questionable.

> If you have ideas about how to regulate against their pollution I'd (genuinely) be very glad to hear them

Trains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing

> If you buy goods shipped from around the world and you understand what that means from a pollution perspective

"You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local ...

Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.

Very little food is air-freighted; it accounts for only 0.16% of food miles.

Many of the foods people assume to come by air are actually transported by boat – avocados and almonds are prime examples. Shipping one kilogram of avocados from Mexico to the United Kingdom ... is only around 8% of avocados’ total footprint. Even when shipped at great distances, its emissions are much less than locally-produced animal products."

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

Apologies, I meant the last bit in a broader sense than only food products.

But the points you're making are fair. Indeed the pollution involved in meat consumption is a big reason why I don't eat meat. There are many contributing aspects to the carbon morality of the products we buy and I try to be mindful of them where possible.

Companies maximize profits and I maximize my life quality. I am not willing to triple my commute time, have health issues because I live in a poorly heated and lighted house, and extemely expensive or unhealthy diet (you can't have both with veganism). And all that for a dop in the ocean of environmental impact.

Not beigh wasteful is all I can do and I can't even afford to be wasteful so that's that.

> Who do you think Shell are selling all this oil to?

I heard that just over half the American military budget is for fuel

Who do you think is responsible for the amount of meat that people eat if not the people eating the meat?
One of the funny things about growing up a vegetarian (in America or maybe more particularly where I'm from) is to be looked down on, seen as immature or as if you are denying the realities of the world, but the people who would say the least science backed to just fucked up shit to you are the people like this who have an absolute hissy fit about talking about the general consequences of a having a exceedingly high caloric intake, composed of a lot of animal products which create more stress on the only livable planet we have access to. The American diet is a joke and we should talk about it since it's an increasingly important topic whether you personally get worked up about it or not.

Anyway, feels good now that I'm older and there is more and more science backed evidence to show you can be healthy without animal based products and how much better it is for the environment, but I wish I could go back and tell that lonely 10 year old kid being mocked by other kids and adults that he made the right choice.

...and good on you "do-gooders" who have the strength to think beyond yourself and change your habits even if it isn't convenient to you. You make the world go round and better to be in

Dude, just go out and eat that steak sandwich if you want. Make your choice and be content with it. Do you have experience with actual, in-person interactions with people where they tried to make you feel guilty for eating one, or are you letting some random comment by some random person on the internet ruffle your feathers?

Yeesh.

Hypocritical much? The entitlement is strong in this one. Unbelievable really!
You know Lahore is in Pakistan, right? I’m Pakistan/Bangladesh, we have a rich meat eating cuisine. That includes meat curries for breakfast, which is probably is the winning breakfast worldwide.
Tangent: For some reason Taheri in Bangladesh refers to a meat and rice dish while in Pakistan it refers exclusively to a vegetable/potato and rice dish. I’ve never been able to figure out why. You would never hear about a “meat taheri” in Pakistan.
And in my hometown, tahri is a blanket term for turmeric rice that is literally handed out on streets (everyone just waits for a turn, puts up their hands, gets a handful and consumes on spot) for free.

Its varieties include additives like chicken or meat but that's about it.

Almost always its given as a way of offering to "feed the poor" and anyone around just turns up and is given a handful.

Don't know if any other place does something similar.

Edit: yeah, plain tahri is just rice cooked with turmeric and garnished with deep fried onions or spring onions.

A way to mass feed a lot of people for cheap.

My parents use the word "Tahri" to reference the gravy in your kadhi/salan.

So maybe it's just a holdover term to dig don't any pulao mixed with a tharka?

At least the "tahri chawal" dish I'm looking at on google seems to be what my parents call pulao

Looks like the internet doesn't know either! I wasn't even aware of the veg version until today.
I asked Chat GPT:

> Tehari is a rice-based dish that is popular in Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as other parts of South Asia. While the basic preparation of the dish is similar, there can be differences in the ingredients and flavor profiles used in Bangladeshi and Pakistani versions of Tehari.

> One of the main differences between Bangladeshi and Pakistani Tehari is the type of meat used. In some regions of Bangladesh, beef is a popular choice for Tehari, while in Pakistan, goat or lamb may be more commonly used. In some regions of Pakistan, there are also variations of Tehari that are made with chicken or fish.

> Another difference is the level of spiciness. Bangladeshi Tehari is often spicier, with the use of more hot chili peppers and spices such as cinnamon and cardamom. Pakistani Tehari, on the other hand, may be milder in flavor, with the use of more subtle spices such as cumin and coriander.

> The type of rice used can also differ. In Bangladesh, aromatic long-grain rice such as Basmati is often used, while in Pakistan, a shorter grain rice may be used.

> Finally, there can be variations in the way the dish is served. In Bangladesh, Tehari is often served with a side of lentil soup and a hard-boiled egg, while in Pakistan, it may be served with a side of raita (a yogurt-based side dish) or pickles.

> Overall, while both Bangladeshi and Pakistani Tehari share many similarities, there can be subtle differences in the ingredients and preparation that reflect the culinary traditions and preferences of each region.

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For context, it didn't become big in Germany. Most burger shops tried Philly cheesesteakes in the last 30 years, but most took it off their menu's since.

E.g. in my 500K city in the east, we had at least 5 burger shops/restaurants with Philly cheesesteakes on the menu, only 2 carry it still. None of has comparable quality to my beloved Philly cheesesteak from South-Texas.

Isn't the cow considered a sacred animal there?
You're thinking of India. Lahore is in Pakistan.
Somebody tell the folks around here what a Philly Cheesesteak is. I've had anything from a French Dip to a ham-and-cheese sandwich. It's disheartening.