[Lakelander]

Originally Posted by brickell

Tis true. It's not peninsular, it's not the panhandle, it's just kind of stuck up there. Jacksonville is kind of like the older brother who moved away and doesn't home that often. They do their own thing.

This is true as well. We have a weird history that features a blend of a several cultural influences. We even have our own unique dishes, such as the camel rider and steak-in-a-sack. You can find these in most of our local delis.

The camel rider:


The steak-in-a-sack:

THERE are subs. There are heroes. There are hoagies, po’ boys and grinders. And in this port city, which has the country’s 10th largest Arab population, there are camel riders.

Elsewhere, the term might be pejorative. But in Jacksonville, these sandwiches, also known as desert riders, are a totemic food. Often stacked with lunch meats, smeared with Italian dressing and tucked into pita bread, they are eaten with a side of tabbouleh and accompanied by a cherry limeade.

Sandwich shop owners elsewhere, including Columbus, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala., also employ the name. But only in Jacksonville are they ubiquitous.

Middle East immigrants began to arrive in northeastern Florida in the 1890s and early 1900s, from countries like Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and what was then Palestine. Many came from the rural Mount Lebanon region between Beirut, Lebanon, and Tripoli, Lebanon. Most were Catholic or Christian Orthodox.

The first to arrive worked as fruit peddlers. Within a generation, those same immigrants opened corner stores, often in working-class neighborhoods where Jim Crow laws restricted opportunities for African-Americans and dark-skinned Arabs. In the backs of those stores, they made sandwiches with meats and cheeses that they pulled from the shelves. As chains displaced mom and pop groceries, they transformed their corner stores into sandwich shops that were, in many communities, Arabic analogues to Jewish delis.

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/di...tous.html?_r=0