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If you’ve uploaded a photo of what you’re eating before, does that make you a foodie?

Or is it simply the enjoyment of food that qualifies you as such?

Maybe you have to post a review on Cape Town’s most notorious restaurant review Facebook group, and face the wrath of its 35 000 members, to make the cut?

Who cares – we all like food, and if you’ve lived in the Mother City for any serious length of time, you’ve probably nibbled on a Gatsby.

According to the BBC’s Heather Richardson, the Gatsby is “Cape Town’s most famous fast food”, and more than just “a solid hangover fix”.

Although, it is a decent way to try and work through the excesses of the night before.

Let’s hear from the BBC article:

If you ask Capetonians about a local dish, a common suggestion would be the Gatsby – a foot-long, soft-white sub stuffed with combinations of meat (polony, masala steak, chicken or calamari), slap tjips (chips), sauce (piri-piri, tomato), cheese, fried eggs and salad.

It’s an intimidating sandwich, requiring both hands and an empty stomach, the wrapper laid out to catch the bursting-forth contents, and a resignation to sauce-smeared cheeks and hands.

Don’t be foolhardy enough to take one on solo; Gatsbys are made to share, usually cut in four.

Unless you’re hungover, in which case you can work your way through one on your lonesome, in bed, regretting some poor life choices.

The exact history of the Gatsby name is the stuff of legend, but it’s generally always Rashaad Pandy, the owner of Athlone takeaway restaurant, Super Fisheries, at the centre of it.

Pandy says it was 1976, and the four men helping him clear a plot in Landsdowne were hungry:

Pandy [below] had promised the men food from his shop in Athlone…

When they returned, he gathered up what he had: “There were some chips left, one of the round Portuguese loaves… there was no fish, but I saw the polony [sliced meat, similar to bologna]. I heated up the chips, I heated up the polony, put some of the homemade atchar [pickle] on top of it and cut it into wedges… And the one guy, Froggy, that was his name, Froggy, he told me, ‘Laanie, it’s a smash, it’s a Gatsby smash!’.”

Image: Cape Town Magazine

Froggy might have been referring to the novel-turned-1974 cinematic hit, The Great Gatsby – but wherever his phrase came from, the name stuck. Pandy was curious to see what his customers thought, so he put it on the counter the next morning. They suggested it was too difficult to eat in the round roll, but why didn’t he try a long loaf instead?

And thus, the Gatsby was born.

Richardson, after speaking with those in the know, says that Gatsby lovers also recommend Cosy Corner in Wynberg, The Golden Dish in the Gatesville Shopping Centre, and Mariam’s Kitchen in the CBD.

You can read the rest of the BBC article here.

A quick Google for the best Gatsbys in Cape Town shows those options above are on the money, with all of them featuring in Cape Town Magazine’s list.

SAA’s in-flight magazine, Sawubona, also features all of those mentioned above.

Before we part ways and start planning lunch, I should also draw your attention to Clover’s new product, polony-flavoured cheese slices.

Business Insider SA put them to the taste test, with decidedly mixed results.

We really need to draw a line in the sand at some point.

[source:bbc]