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City’s Big Cheese Scales Down Philly’s Reputation
Philadelphia, the calorific capital of America, has gone on a diet.
Smarting from a recent survey that found the home of the legendary and lethal “Philly cheese steak” topped the fat city scales, john Street, the Mayor, has declared war on flab and urged citizens to lose 76 tons in 76 days.
A health and fitness czar has been appointed and an army of volunteers are roaming the streets with sets of bathroom scales, lecturing on healthy eating and dragooning the obese into attending free exercise classes.
Mr. Street, once more than 20 stone but now trimmed down to less than 14 stone after several years of dieting and 4 am workouts, became mayor last year – shortly after Men’s Fitness magazine awarded Philadelphia the dubious, but hotly contested, honour of the fattest US city.
The Democrat mayor has made the weight issue a priority. “We’re too fat,” he declared. “We have great pride and we decided that we aren’t going to be the fattest city in America, we’re going to be the fittest.”
He has a daunting task ahead of him. Although the latest survey by Men’s Fitness showed that Philadelphia had slipped behind Houston and Detroit in the obesity rankings, that can be regarded as an improvement so negligible as to be utterly irrelevant. Thirty per cent of Philadelphians were rated as obese and only 16 per cent take exercise.
Mr. Street and Gwen Foster, his health czar, have teamed up with the basketball team the Philadelphia 76ers for the weight-loss challenge. About 30,000 participants, all weighed before the end of last month, will have to drop an average of 5lb each for 76 tons to be lost. A US ton, at 2,000lb, is less than a metric ton.
Government offices, the police department and shopping malls were all invaded by weighing by weighing teams. Chubby chefs were recruited, on the grounds that real progress might be made if they could be persuaded to cut fat from their dishes.
The city where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 prides itself today on its food and boasts many top-quality restaurants. It is Philadelphia’s famous fast-food, however, that seems to be doing the real damage. Under particular suspicion is the city’s greatest contribution to what might loosely be described as American cuisine; the cheese steak.
Invented by Pat Olivieri at his hot-dog stand south of the Italian market in the 1920s, it is a glutinous sandwich of chopped steak, onions and peppers smothered in cheese. It is delicious, it just makes you feel like a candidate for an immediate quadruple heart bypass.
The cheese steak is now found nationwide, but Pat’s King of Steaks, still owned by the Olivieri family, remains the city’s best-known restaurant – an obligatory stop for Presidential candidates and a particular favourite of Bill Clinton. He once astonished aides by devouring two cheese steaks, one after the other, while barely breaking sweat. The current owner, Pat’s grand nephew, Frank Olivieri, does not fear for his livelihood.
“Ever since the mayor launched his campaign my business has been up 14 per cent,” he said yesterday, adding that he had eaten a cheese steak every day since “I was old enough to eat food.” At the age of 37, his cholesterol remained fine. He admitted, however, that: “If you are trying to lose weight you shouldn’t eat them on a regular basis.”
A backlash would be in keeping with the sheer delight that Philadelphians take in overindulging. A highlight of the gastronomic calendar is the Wing Bowl. A 20,000-strong audience gathers at dawn for a day of excessive eating and drinking, including a contest to see who can eat the most chicken wings in 30 minutes.
This year’s winner, a 39-year-old behemoth called Bill Simmons, polished off 137. The crowd cheered his victory almost as loudly as they celebrated each time other contenders threw up.
