by Jim Gaffigan
Of course, Jared didn’t lose the weight just eating Subway sandwiches. He switched from eating burgers and fries every day to eating Subway sandwiches every day. So as a result we think of going to Subway as a healthy activity. “Well, I could go jogging or I could go to Subway and have a meatball sub.” What level of denial are we in when we view eating a meatball sub as a healthy alternative to a hamburger? Isn’t a meatball sub just five hamburgers rolled into balls, covered in cheese, and put on a bun that can hold five hamburgers?
There’s always an open door behind the counter at Subway revealing a back room. What’s going on back there? I know it’s not the kitchen, because the kitchen is the toaster oven. Do you think maybe Jared is back there? Is he secretly running all the Subway shops like the Wizard of Oz? “I am the great and powerful Jared!” More likely it’s probably a safe room for all the employees to hide in when the Health Department shows up. Eat Fresh!
Arby’s
Arby’s is famous for its roast beef. You’ve probably driven by the Arby’s hat sign, which I always found confusing. “The food tastes like eating a hat?” I always thought someone had to eat their hat when they lost a bet. Maybe the bet was that Arby’s used real roast beef in their sandwiches.
I’m not sure, but I think it’s supposed to be a cowboy hat, since Arby’s signature dish is the roast beef sandwich and cowboys are associated with cattle and Arby’s wants to give the impression that their meat comes from cows. Keeping with the cowboy theme, Arby’s offers a sauce called “horsey” sauce. It may be a reference to a horseradish sauce, but I’d think a fast-food place would make a stronger effort to not associate itself with horse meat.
Arby’s is like the cousin of the other fast-food places, but it’s that weird cousin you never see, and when you do, you always think, Oh, yeah, you exist. I love a Beef ’n Cheddar, but there’s nothing really impressive about Arby’s. You’ll never hear, “Well, I met him at Arby’s, so you know he has good taste.”
About ten years ago Arby’s tried to replace the cowboy hat with a talking oven mitt. I guess the idea was to emphasize the “oven roasting” that they do to their bologna-like roast beef loaves. Unfortunately, the oven mitt just made people buy more Hamburger Helper, so Arby’s went back to the hat. Maybe they’ll try the saddle next. Giddyup, horsey!
CHICKEN DANCE
KFC
Fried chicken is not good for you. Anyone who has left a piece of fried chicken on a paper napkin and returned to discover that the napkin has turned into liquid knows this. No one ordering a bucket of fried chicken at KFC believes they are making a healthy decision. Anything that comes in the serving size of “bucket” can’t be that good for you. A bucket, after all, is how we feed farm animals. “Yeah, I’ll have a bucket of fried chicken, a silo of Pepsi, and a trough of pig slop. Make it the diet pig slop.” The company was aware of the health perception when it changed its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC. They didn’t stop selling fried chicken, but they supposedly added non–fried chicken “healthy items” to their menu, like the DoubleDown, which is the strange, two fried chicken patties without a bun, and Popcorn Chicken, or Original Recipe Bites, which I’m pretty sure is just leftover crumbs from making their fried chicken. I guess selling these crumbs as a dinner menu item is less disturbing than selling them as a breakfast cereal.
The most successful new KFC product would have to be the KFC Famous Bowl. I’m not sure what makes these bowls famous, but it’s certainly not their health benefits. It almost seems like someone at KFC decided, “You know how all our side dishes are unhealthy, disappointing, and taste the same? Why don’t we just throw them all together in a Styrofoam bowl?” The Famous Bowls are like a shepherd’s pie of unhealthiness. They have a layer of mashed potatoes, a layer of corn, a layer of cigarette ashes, and a couple of apple cores. The bowls are like paying homage to the character of Templeton, the barnyard rat in Charlotte’s Web.
I was lucky enough to meet the actual Colonel Sanders statue in the Louisville airport.
Popeyes
KFC, Brown’s, and Church’s all have fine fried chicken, but my favorite is Popeyes. That’s right, “Popeyes.” I didn’t forget the apostrophe. That is how the name of the restaurant is spelled. It’s not possessive, it’s … plural, I guess. I don’t know. Since I’m generally horrible at grammar, the absence of the apostrophe in the name Popeyes almost makes me feel smarter. How many thousands of people did that slip by before I, Jim “bad at grammar” Gaffigan, caught it? Anyway, I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me what Popeye the sailor man even has to do with fried chicken.
OWNER: I’m going to name my fried chicken restaurant Popeyes.
FRIEND: Didn’t Popeye eat spinach?
OWNER: Spinach, fried chicken … what’s the difference?
FRIEND: Oh, I get it. Popeye was a sailor, and your food goes through me like a torpedo.
Supposedly the name Popeyes has nothing to with the cartoon character. Maybe the name is a reference to what happens to your eyes after you eat the spicy Cajun recipe.
PIZZA: THAT’S AMORE
© Corey Melton
The standards are set pretty low for pizza. There is even a brand of frozen pizza called Tombstone. Yes, Tombstone. I guess someone figured, “This pizza tastes worse than death. It actually tastes like the cement slab placed on top of a grave.” When you’re a kid, you don’t know the difference between good pizza and bad pizza. You just love pizza. I grew up eating and loving Tombstone pizza and fondly recall bragging to friends, “I just ate an entire Tombstone.” I guess I’ve always considered all pizzas to be personal pizzas. Now I’m too lazy and impatient to cook a frozen pizza or to go out for pizza. I get delivery.
The most amazing thing about delivery pizza is how critical we are of it. Pizza from Domino’s, Little Caesars, and Papa John’s is considered automatically bad. “Oh, that place sucks!” Oh really? It’s pizza. That you ordered by phone most likely after midnight. That some underpaid college student or overqualified immigrant personally brought to your home. I’m sorry if it doesn’t meet your high-end culinary standards. I live in New York City, one of the many places that claims to have the best pizza on the planet. My friends will often make comments: “How is Domino’s even in business in New York City?” You know the biggest difference between some guy making your pizza at a local pizzeria and some guy making your pizza at a Domino’s? Nothing. Well, mostly nothing. The two guys making the pizzas are probably paid the same and even emigrated to America from the same country. I’m not saying I don’t care about good-tasting pizza, but often the largest discernible difference between a Domino’s and the local pizzeria is that the latter one offers pizza sold by the slice. I never understood the big appeal of buying pizza by the slice. “Can you reheat a slice from that pizza that has been sitting out for a couple of hours?” It feels like you are eating someone else’s pizza. My major issue with the pizza delivery chains is their interpretation of sizes. Based on Domino’s “large” pizza, a small pizza would be roughly the size of a dog bowl. Because you are not actually in the restaurant, you can’t complain about the size. You’re not going to have the delivery guy send it back to the kitchen. Of course, I prefer pizza from Lombardi’s to Domino’s, but in the end all pizza is great. Everyone loves pizza. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s an indication you have an unhealthy obsession with pizza. I know I do. The following are pizza places I’ve probably called late at night when I should’ve just gone to bed.
Domino’s
Domino’s became famous for their now-defunct promise of delivering your pizza in thirty minutes or less. They stopped it when a couple of delivery cars ran over some people while trying to deliver a pizza before the deadline. Now I think Domino’s may be trying to kill us with their food. I can never figure out those Domino’s deals. It always seems like you can get one large pizza for $15.99 or you can get two large pizzas for $15.99. If not trying to slowly kill us, I think Domino�
��s is definitely trying to get us fat. “If we get them superfat, so fat they can’t leave the house, then they have to call us again.” I call it the “Domino’s effect.” A ridiculous idea? Consider this. All the dishes Domino’s sells are carbohydrates: pizza, breadsticks, pasta, and the poorly named Cinna Stix. Is there anyone who desires that many carbs in one meal? (excited) “Why don’t we get a pizza, and as an appetizer let’s have bread! And for dessert, how about this … bread? Maybe I’ll open a nice bottle of bread. Then we can rub bread on each other.”
A nice bottle of bread.
Every Friday night in my house is family pizza night, which involves me calling Domino’s and attempting to order four large pizzas from some guy who is making them faster than I can order them. During these phone calls fraught with miscommunication, I’m usually pitched Domino’s latest new product. “You wanna try our new sandwiches?” Whenever Domino’s introduces a new product, there’s always a part of me that thinks, I don’t know if you guys have mastered the pizza yet. I think you still got some work to do. I don’t think the pizza crust and the box are supposed to taste the same. A couple of years ago, Domino’s introduced the Bread Bowl Pasta, which is a bread bowl filled with pasta covered in cheese. I guess the only thing missing was a suicide note. I don’t know what it says about our culture when there is a market for a bread bowl filled with pasta. I’m pretty sure eating the Bread Bowl Pasta is a sign you have a serious eating disorder, right? It sounds like something someone would confess at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. “I knew my eating was out of control when I started eating pasta out of a bread bowl. It was just a matter of time before I’d cover it with cheese.”
I don’t know how you would even come up with the idea for the Domino’s Bread Bowl Pasta.
NEW PRODUCT HEAD: We need a healthy alternative to the pizza, something like a salad.
JOHNSON: Do you mean like a bread bowl filled with pasta covered in cheese?
NEW PRODUCT HEAD: Uh, not really. No, I was thinking more like a salad with lettuce in it.
JOHNSON: We could do that, or we could fill a potato with a sweet roll and inject it into people’s butts!
NEW PRODUCT HEAD: Do you even work here?
JOHNSON: No.
In full disclosure I have tried the Domino’s Bread Bowl Pasta. When I was eating the cheese-covered pasta out of the bread bowl, all I could think was, This could use a side of mashed potatoes. It was carb-a-licious. I like to imagine the folks back at the Domino’s headquarters are fighting over credit for creating the Bread Bowl Pasta.
DOMINO’S CEO: Johnson, you came up with the Bread Bowl Pasta, right?
NEW PRODUCT HEAD: Well, actually it was me, sir.
JOHNSON: It was me!
DOMINO’S CEO: Well, either way, we’ve been contacted by The Hague. We are being prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
JOHNSON AND NEW PRODUCT HEAD: (pointing) It was him!
I love how Domino’s presents the Bread Bowl Pasta as some traditional entrée from the old country. (Italian accent) “Ah, da pasta bread bowl! Justa like a Mama Domino used to make. Every Sunday she saya, ‘You gettoutta my kitchen when I maka da pasta bread bowl. What’s a matta for you? I breaka ur face!” (and other stereotypical Italian phrases) Good old Mama Domino!
Pizza Hut
I guess at some point somebody thought it would be a good idea to name a pizza restaurant Pizza Hut. “We want a name that communicates quality food and third-world housing!”
“Is the pizza good?”
“It comes from a place called Pizza Hut. Need I say more?”
Papa John’s
There are few things I’m certain of in this world, but I’m confident I’ll never hear someone say, “I order pizza from Papa John’s because I like their commercials.” It’s just the owner of Papa John’s pitching his restaurant in a monotone voice. I sometimes wonder if the Papa John’s commercials are trying to get us to order from Domino’s. The owner of Papa John’s may not be the best pitchman, but he’s the worst at acting. Papa John’s commercials actually make me yearn for a Men’s Wearhouse commercial.
Little Caesars
On the low end of delivery pizza is Little Caesars. Little Caesars doesn’t even bother to tell you how their pizza tastes. It’s about price. Their deals are always like “Five dollars for five pizzas!” In a way, their prices are almost too low. I always think, Maybe charge a little more and use better ingredients. Little Caesars is the ninety-nine-cent store of pizzas. I seem to see a lot of Little Caesars shops in Kmarts, which is not really helping the Little Caesars’ perception, or Kmart’s perception, for that matter. I’m not sure who thought this was a good idea. Maybe someone who’d never been to a Kmart or a Little Caesars.
Sbarro
When Sbarro recently announced that it was filing for sbankruptcy, I was sbad. I wasn’t sburprised, given that Sbarro is a pizza chain that doesn’t deliver pizza. That doesn’t seem sbmart. “I can get that mediocre fast-food pizza impersonal touch without the convenience of delivery?” I’m not looking to be sbanned from Sbarro or sbound sbtupid here. If you enjoy mediocre Italian food or dry pizza with ziti on it, Sbarro is … well, still disappointing.
The Johns
“The Johns” is how I refer to a group of fast-food chains that all have John in their name, so I assume they are all related under the John family corporate umbrella. There is Papa John, his son, Jimmy John, and his first-generation immigrant grandfather, Taco John. Tim McGraw and Norah Jones somehow fit into this family tree, but they have not yet agreed to take one of those genealogy DNA tests. I did figure out that Long John Silver was a distant cousin or maybe just named after Papa John’s favorite underwear. Maybe I think this way because I’ve eaten so much fast food my doctor told me I might need the Jimmy John surgery.
Whether good or bad, I will always love pizza. The Italians really knew what they were doing, combining all the major food groups into something we can eat without a fork. Even less work for me in that I can have it delivered. It’s great hot and even great cold for breakfast after I wake up with my face in it after I passed out eating it the night before. Pizza is pretty much an ideal food.
THE PEOPLE’S COURT
If eating fast food were a sport, the food court would be the gymnasium, where there is a whole different type of bodybuilding going on.
There are many varieties of fast-food places in food courts. You can have pizza, Chinese, and a burrito within a few feet of each other. The food court is like the United Nations of crappy food. You and your friends or family can order from different restaurants and still sit at the same table as you compare everyone’s version of fake ethnic fast food.
Sometimes the food court is totally deserted, and all the employees are standing behind their counters staring at one another like jungle animals in competition over their prey. When you pick the place you want to go, you feel like you have to ignore the others’ guilt-tripping stare-down: “What’s wrong with my food?” The only thing worse than an empty food court is probably a really crowded food court, which always has the energy of a refugee camp. Masses of families, coworkers, and teenage girls are milling around with trays looking for an open table, trying to steal chairs. There’s always that group hovering over you with their trays, waiting for your table. “I think you have stayed past the fifteen-minute limit, buddy.” The worst is if you are by yourself at a table. If you are over the age of eighteen, it is impossible to eat alone in a food court and not look like a serial killer. “I’m here to eat and find my next victim.” Everyone at the food court has been found guilty, and there appears to be no parole.
KETCHUP: KING OF THE CONDIMENTS
Jeannie really appreciates condiments. No, really. She puts mayo on both sides of a sandwich. She puts mustard on her burger and then dunks her burger in mustard! The more condiments, the better in Jeannieland. I affectionately refer to her as Condi because she loves condiments that much. She has hot sauce sitting on her desk right now. Yea
h, she’s one of those people. Condiment-prepared. Jeannie loves hot sauce, but she’s not obnoxious about it. It seems that most people who are really into hot sauce feel the need to challenge other people. “You have to try this super-hot fire engine sauce.” I always explain, “That’s okay. I don’t want the super-hot fire engine diarrhea. I’m not a fan of wearing a diaper.” All I need to be condiment-prepared and satisfied is ketchup.