Pizza? Bagels with lox? Bacon-egg-and-cheese on a roll?
That’s city snob nonsense. Real New Yorkers eat steaming plates of garbage.
So argues a viral Reddit thread, anyway. On Monday, user emilou09 posted a question to the site’s cooking forum: “I’m cooking one meal from every state in the United States, what meal best represents your state?”
Some 19,200 posts later, the votes are in — and it seems NYC’s iconic eats can’t compare to the greasy glories of the garbage plate, Rochester’s edible threat to public health.
The garbage plate — trademarked with a capital G and P at its birthplace, Nick Tahou Hots, but now sold at plenty of copycat spots upstate — is a big ol’ pile of macaroni, home fries and meat “dressed to one’s liking,” per the restaurant’s menu. (I would like mine dressed for my funeral, sure to follow soon after consuming one of these.)
It looks “exactly how it sounds,” to quote Delish.com, and apparently sprung into being during the Great Depression. That tracks! It’s greatly depressing, if you have even a passing interest in longevity.
In fairness, it’s probably just what the body needs (or deserves) after a night out. But more than a BEC?
Redditors say yes.
“It’s the best drunk food of all time,” writes one.
It’s “a hangover’s worst nightmare,” writes another, whose preferred fixins include “either hot dogs — white hots are best — or burgers, topped with a meat hot sauce, [then] drizzled with mustard and topped with chopped onions, with 2 slices of thick Italian bread on the side to soak up the grease.”
Dude over here seems a little more pragmatic: “It’s an amazing thing to have once in your life, and then [you] realize that eating more would literally kill you.”
Naturally, the garbage plate debate kicked off an upstate-downstate culture war.
“Wtf most of NY lives in the city and Long Island. Most of NY doesn’t know about these things lol,” writes one user.
“While NYC is certainly part of NY and an important part, population density doesn’t make you any f–king better,” responds a garbage aficionado.
“You can keep that hillbilly dish upstate, us real new Yorkers will stick with the pizza and bagels,” a reasonable person declares.
“Bagel ain’t gonna cut it drunk at 3am,” replies a person who has apparently never heard of a dollar slice.
So, there you have it: Trash is the official dish of New York, and we all hate each other. Proud to live here every day.