Degenerate
Feb 18th, 2005, 04:11 PM
NEW BRUNSWICK - You would think that in a university town of beauty, truth and art a man with a lunch wagon would never be allowed to name his sandwiches with words that you've always taught your kid never to use.
Somehow in New Brunswick they think it's kind of funny to name a sandwich the Fat Beach. That's as in, "I'll have a Fat Beach, a Coke and an apple." Other fare at a clump of wagons at the busy intersection of College Avenue and Hamilton Street include sandwiches named for certain religions, women, nationalities, gay men and certain body parts and functions - all preceded by the word "fat" - that newspaper editors rarely allow in their pages.
It's been a fixture in New Brunswick for years.
Never mind that it makes no sense. Never mind that there is no apparent relationship between the ingredients of the atrociously misspelled Fat Buddah sandwich and the Buddha himself.
Never mind that members of certain groups are memorialized with the word "fat" and then slapped onto a menu.
Apparently in New Brunswick, it's supposed to be funny to call a sandwich a Fat Romano or a Fat Phillippino. But it's a sophomoric embarrassment to the town and to the university.
People hanging out at the lunch wagons Wednesday didn't see the disconnect. They thought the names were just fine.
It took the university itself to step in after receiving some complaints and put a stop to this characterization of sandwiches.
Abdo Elfeiki has managed one of the lunch wagons, RU Hungry, for five years. Naming sandwiches the Fat This and the Fat That was institutionalized long before he arrived, Elfeiki said.
But only now is Rutgers doing anything to defend its students, faculty and staff. You have to
wonder what took the university so long to decide that, in fact, it's reprehensible to attach ethnic, national and sexual slurs to sandwiches.
A university spokeswoman would say only that the administration had received complaints and decided to take action. Rutgers could do this since it owns the piece of property on which the lunch wagons do business.
It seems that in their leases with Rutgers, the vendors agree to provide the university with copies of their menus. The vendors had not done this, the spokeswoman said.
Additionally, the lunch wagons must exhibit respect for the university's students and staff, and must operate in "a professional, courteous manner."
Elfeiki said that he has handled some complaints over the years by changing a sandwich's name. This, he said, is how the Fat Beach came about.
But how could anyone offer a sandwich with such a name in the first place?
He shrugged. "That was the name when we started here," he said lamely.
Years ago, there might have been street demonstrations in front of Elfeiki's RU Hungry lunch wagon. But on Wednesday, days after Rutgers came down heavy and ordered Elfeiki and several other sandwich makers to change some of their more offensive names, the only noise came from passing buses and rumbling stomachs.
The saints who run Rutgers may have outlawed some sandwich names, but some other raunchier titles remain on some menus. Still available were other sandwiches that refer to body parts, body functions and sex in words you never hear in church and rarely hear even in an undergraduate biology lab.
Elfeiki was all innocence, and not a little disingenuous.
"These names now are being criticized. I don't know why," he said. "These names have nothing to do with race, religion or sex, or about anything else," he said.
He really said that.
So what is this guy talking about?
To refer to gay women with words you probably wouldn't use to a lesbian's face? Is that OK?
No complaints, Elfeiki said.
But the lunch crowd was all right with the sandwich names.
"They're just part of the culture of this corner," said Amy Gehrmann, a secretary who works at the university. "It's fine."
The Fat Phillippino? "I think it's kind of cool," said Jeff Torralba, who was born in the United States 17 years ago but whose parents come from the Philippines. "I don't think they're using the word in a bad way or anything like that."
"Fat Phillippino!" a cook yelled from the RU Hungry wagon.
"Uh, that's mine," Torralba said and went to pay for his sandwich.
The Fat Phillippino is one of the sandwiches Rutgers complained about. It will be renamed.
"No big deal," said Ryan Gaboy, whose ancestry is in part Italian. "I'm not offended by these names."
The Fat Romano sandwich is all right?
"Sure," Gaboy said.
Well since it's OK to refer to name a sandwich with a euphemism for a gay man, would it be all right with Gaboy if, instead of a Fat Romano, Elfeiki were to use an ethnic insult to name one of his sandwiches?
"No problem," Gaboy said. "I'd probably order one." He said he was serious.
Just double up on the mayonnaise and buy another Coke.
Have lunch, New Brunswick, and then go back to sleep.
The writer is an idiot and just wants to be politcally correct
Somehow in New Brunswick they think it's kind of funny to name a sandwich the Fat Beach. That's as in, "I'll have a Fat Beach, a Coke and an apple." Other fare at a clump of wagons at the busy intersection of College Avenue and Hamilton Street include sandwiches named for certain religions, women, nationalities, gay men and certain body parts and functions - all preceded by the word "fat" - that newspaper editors rarely allow in their pages.
It's been a fixture in New Brunswick for years.
Never mind that it makes no sense. Never mind that there is no apparent relationship between the ingredients of the atrociously misspelled Fat Buddah sandwich and the Buddha himself.
Never mind that members of certain groups are memorialized with the word "fat" and then slapped onto a menu.
Apparently in New Brunswick, it's supposed to be funny to call a sandwich a Fat Romano or a Fat Phillippino. But it's a sophomoric embarrassment to the town and to the university.
People hanging out at the lunch wagons Wednesday didn't see the disconnect. They thought the names were just fine.
It took the university itself to step in after receiving some complaints and put a stop to this characterization of sandwiches.
Abdo Elfeiki has managed one of the lunch wagons, RU Hungry, for five years. Naming sandwiches the Fat This and the Fat That was institutionalized long before he arrived, Elfeiki said.
But only now is Rutgers doing anything to defend its students, faculty and staff. You have to
wonder what took the university so long to decide that, in fact, it's reprehensible to attach ethnic, national and sexual slurs to sandwiches.
A university spokeswoman would say only that the administration had received complaints and decided to take action. Rutgers could do this since it owns the piece of property on which the lunch wagons do business.
It seems that in their leases with Rutgers, the vendors agree to provide the university with copies of their menus. The vendors had not done this, the spokeswoman said.
Additionally, the lunch wagons must exhibit respect for the university's students and staff, and must operate in "a professional, courteous manner."
Elfeiki said that he has handled some complaints over the years by changing a sandwich's name. This, he said, is how the Fat Beach came about.
But how could anyone offer a sandwich with such a name in the first place?
He shrugged. "That was the name when we started here," he said lamely.
Years ago, there might have been street demonstrations in front of Elfeiki's RU Hungry lunch wagon. But on Wednesday, days after Rutgers came down heavy and ordered Elfeiki and several other sandwich makers to change some of their more offensive names, the only noise came from passing buses and rumbling stomachs.
The saints who run Rutgers may have outlawed some sandwich names, but some other raunchier titles remain on some menus. Still available were other sandwiches that refer to body parts, body functions and sex in words you never hear in church and rarely hear even in an undergraduate biology lab.
Elfeiki was all innocence, and not a little disingenuous.
"These names now are being criticized. I don't know why," he said. "These names have nothing to do with race, religion or sex, or about anything else," he said.
He really said that.
So what is this guy talking about?
To refer to gay women with words you probably wouldn't use to a lesbian's face? Is that OK?
No complaints, Elfeiki said.
But the lunch crowd was all right with the sandwich names.
"They're just part of the culture of this corner," said Amy Gehrmann, a secretary who works at the university. "It's fine."
The Fat Phillippino? "I think it's kind of cool," said Jeff Torralba, who was born in the United States 17 years ago but whose parents come from the Philippines. "I don't think they're using the word in a bad way or anything like that."
"Fat Phillippino!" a cook yelled from the RU Hungry wagon.
"Uh, that's mine," Torralba said and went to pay for his sandwich.
The Fat Phillippino is one of the sandwiches Rutgers complained about. It will be renamed.
"No big deal," said Ryan Gaboy, whose ancestry is in part Italian. "I'm not offended by these names."
The Fat Romano sandwich is all right?
"Sure," Gaboy said.
Well since it's OK to refer to name a sandwich with a euphemism for a gay man, would it be all right with Gaboy if, instead of a Fat Romano, Elfeiki were to use an ethnic insult to name one of his sandwiches?
"No problem," Gaboy said. "I'd probably order one." He said he was serious.
Just double up on the mayonnaise and buy another Coke.
Have lunch, New Brunswick, and then go back to sleep.
The writer is an idiot and just wants to be politcally correct