Not that anyone needs a definition of a cheese steak. The sandwich of shaved beef and molten cheese on a sturdy Italian roll, once uniquely Philadelphian, is known pretty much everywhere. But exactly how to order one remains an art that is little known or poorly practiced elsewhere. As posted near the order window at Pat’s (where the sandwich was invented by Pat and Harry Olivieri in 1930), this is how to do it:
1. Say “wit” or “wit’out,” referring to onions.
2. Specify your cheese: provolone, American, or Cheez Whiz. Or tell the order taker you want a pizza steak, which adds red sauce to the sandwich.
3. Have your money ready: “Do all of your borrowing in line.”
4. Practice all of the above while waiting in line.
A few annotations are in order. While Cheez Whiz is by far the current most popular topping for a cheese steak, molten cheese in a jar was not introduced until after World War II. The earliest steak sandwiches sold by the Olivieris from their hot dog cart in the Italian market had no cheese on them at all, the presumption being that the essence of cheesesteakhood is not in the cheese but in the right combination of beef and bread. When cheese was introduced sometime in the 1930s, it no doubt was provolone.
While most cheese steak connoisseurs are fairly liberal vis-à-vis provolone vs. Whiz and even American, ordering any other cheese is an awful faux pas. In 2003, when Senator John F. Kerry was campaigning in Philadelphia for the Democratic Party nomination for president, he tried to show he was an ordinary Joe by ordering a cheese steak at Pat’s. His handlers had not done their research, however, and the abashed Kerry was caught by reporters ordering his steak with Swiss cheese—sacrilege!—and was then photographed nibbling daintily at the corner of the mammoth sandwich—marking Kerry as a street food weenie or, even worse, a cultural snob out of touch with the people’s way of chowing down. Craig LaBan, food critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, said flat-out, “It will doom his candidacy in Philadelphia,” explaining that to get Swiss cheese on a steak in Philly was “an alternative lifestyle.”
Finally, a note about the meat itself. There are two fundamental styles. The classic way, as done at Pat’s, Steve’s, and Geno’s, is to grill very thin slices of steak and leave them fairly intact, folding them into the roll separately from the onions. The second method, practiced at Mama’s and Lorenzo’s, is to use a spatula to hack up the beef as it sizzles. The latter technique allows the onions to be blended with the beef on the griddle. Mama’s even adds the cheese before piling the whole load into the bread’s jaws.