American Cuisine: the Cheesesteak

It was a Thursday, and my final work day of the year, as Penn State closes for about 10 days over the holiday break. I was working at home, which was pretty cool, and a very laid-back way to end things. My husband decided to run into town to acquire groceries, gas up my car, and run a few errands.

He surprised me by coming home with a pair of cheesesteaks for lunch from C.C. Pepper's, one of my absolute favorite treats. He got himself the authentic (steak, fried onions, and cheese sauce), and me the Philly style (steak, American cheese, fried onions, marinara sauce, and oregano). About half of my Philly cheesesteak appears in the photo above. NOM!

I've been living in the State College area more or less since about August of 1982, and C.C. Pepper's has been a local staple that whole time. They used to have several locations in town, including one downtown near the spot where the McDonald's now sits on East College Ave. across from South Halls.

I didn't have much money for treats then. In fact, I was pretty much flat broke, and (when I was able to meet the 110-pound weight requirement to donate, which I sometimes couldn't) I sold my blood plasma at Sera-Tec Biologicals to make a bit of cash on the side.

On Saturday mornings, I cleaned for local people in town. And so it was that I met the science fiction author William Tenn (aka Philip Klass) while cleaning his bathroom one morning. But on Friday nights, I'd splurge, and my big treat for the week would be to get the whole C.C. Pepper's cheesesteak deal: a 9-inch cheesesteak, fries, and a refillable drink.

In the mid-1980s, the C.C. Pepper's on College Ave. was right across the street from a video rental place. You would select a video or two and take them to private rooms to watch them. It's the first place I remember seeing Blade Runner when it hit the video market. Nobody actually OWNED VCRs at that point in time; they were just too new, and there was that troublesome, ongoing squabble about Beta vs. VHS formats.

Alas, there is only one C.C. Pepper's location in town now, and it's at the North Atherton Walmart plaza. I usually get a coast-to-coast cheesesteak when I'm eating on site, which is a mash-up of the Philly and California styles - California style features mayo, tomatoes, and lettuce, and (IMHO) the lettuce gets soggy if you try to travel with it, so that's why when my sandwich is to go, I get a Philly style instead.

This cheesesteak was as good as any I've ever had, and I beat my husband to the finish. He looked over and my plate was empty. "DID YOU EAT THAT WHOLE THING?" he asked.  Um . . . YEP!

The purists will tell you that the ONLY cheesesteaks worth eating are found in Philadelphia. But they would be wrong; these, in fact, are excellent. Eating a cheesesteak brings back happy memories. The 80s, marvelous as they were, couldn't last forever. But at least the cheesesteaks live on! (And I add a prayer that the last C.C. Pepper's never closes! - Amen. Or should I say: A-NOM!)

I wanted the soundtrack for this image to be something about meat, but I didn't like any of the songs about meat that I found. So here is a song by Meat Loaf; one of my favorites from his classic 1979 album, Bat Out of Hell. The sandwich looks delicious, you say? Yeah, well, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth!