The Home of the Fat and the Fatuous

There is a strange American ritual that every candidate for national office is absolutely, positively required to partake in, regardless of their state of physical health or the strength of their digestive system, and that is to sample "the most typical local food" of each and every place they go to campaign. This is an unavoidable duty. Kissing babies is passe (plus, it might be thought of as a "pro-life" gesture, and we can't have that) -- wearing a hard hat is a bit of a reach, and wearing an Indian war bonnet is totally un-PC. And Dukakis put an end to the tank-riding thing once and for all. But the food thing -- you gotta do it. You know the drill -- it's beans in Boston, knishes in Manhattan, Coney Island hot dogs, Kansas City steaks, tacos in El Paso, kielbasa in Buffalo, "Pacific rim fusion" in San Francisco (yes, that's a cuisine, not an "unnatural act")... and a Primanti's sandwich in Pittsburgh. Now... the Primanti's sandwich is the one thing you can order where no one will ever ask you, "Do you want a fries with that?" -- because it already _has_ "a fries" -- _in the sandwich_, along with cole slaw. Do I have to add that this monstrosity of heartrending (literally) cuisine is about 8 inches tall, and you need the jaws of a boa constrictor to eat one? And yet it's considered in the poorest possible taste to "deconstruct" a Primanti's sandwich -- I know 'cause I did that once, and almost got thrown out of the joint. No, you can only pick the whole thing up all at once and try to chip away at it, they way the guy who carved Mount Rushmore had to do -- and believe me, it takes just about as long. And yet, any candidate who comes to town has to take time out of their busy schedule to eat -- or try to -- one of these things. It's a kind of initiation rite, I guess, like those rituals the early African explorers were expected to go through. "Oh yes bwana, it is a great honor to be offered the eye of the monkey (heh heh)." Now, to all the above I should add that, with the possible exception of San Francisco, all "typical local foods" in America don't even appear on the "food pyramid" -- or if they do they have a skull and crossbones printed nearby. So yes, the typical local food of any locality in America is the food the big, fat slobs eat. So why is it required of our presidential candidates? And how can Obama not have gained any weight since his campaign started? Is he bulimic? And what kind of statement is it that a candidate has to eat the "food of the people" while at the same time the government has declared a jihad on all forms of fat and carbohydrates? Are we just a little bit ambivalent on this issue? Could be...