[Sca-cooks] a defination for Philly sandwiches

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach david friedman:
>Restaurants elsewhere in the country claim to have a philly
>cheesesteak without knowing what it is. So far as I can tell they
>deduce the recipe from the name, and then give you a steak sandwich.

I found the following after Googling for "real Philly cheese steak",
but have no basis for comparison. Maybe someone can tell me how
accurate the author is:

http://www.cdkitchen.com/rfr/data/941383602.shtml

I liked the little snippet about putting the toppings alongside,
rather than on top of, the meat, to make sure you get toppings in
every bite. It suggests to me that one eats them like a frankfurter,
with the opening in the split bun (in this case a roll) facing
upwards.

On the spiedie front, my niece and my sister, one of whom lives
outside of Binghamton, NY, and one in Johnson City, two of the three
Hubs of The Spiedie Capital of the Earth (the third being Endicott,
NY), it seems they agree that "a spiedie" is served, generally, on a
slice of soft, glutinous "Italian" bread (in some parts of the world
this is known as Portuguese bread). The word "sandwich" is not used,
but you can put your spiedie meat, etc., on a sub-type roll and
create a spiedie sub.

My sister adds (by way of establishing her credentials, I guess):

At 7:33 PM -0500 2/12/03, John Kinney wrote:
>OK.  Go to dogpile.com  (really) and type in "spiedies" and you
>should get a lot more information on spiedies than you want.  I
>actually really could call Sam Lupo and ask him your questions.
>Also Emma has a Salamida in her class.

Apparently Sam Lupo and anybody named Salamida are spiedie
luminaries. I'm pretty sure Salamida is a brand of bottled spiedie
marinade and sauce, available locally (to that area, that is), and a
touristy trade good from that area, as well. A bottle of it turns up
at my home every so often, even though it seems like just an herb
vinaigrette to me. It makes a good conversation starter when people
walk into my kitchen... on the other hand, when people make it into
my kitchen, we're probably past the "conversation-starter" stage
anyway.

Now, of course, people are going to come in and say, "All right, show
me the Salamida Spiedie Sauce."

Adamantius