The Primanti Bros. Sandwich Was Named The Coolest Thing Made In Pennsylvania And I Demand An Inquiry

I grew up in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of people who moved away from their home state, it's a weird point of pride.

Why shouldn't it be? A lot of great things are made there and that's something the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry celebrated with its own bracket to determine what is the coolest thing made in the Keystone State.

Very cool, who doesn't love a bracket?

Well, I loved this one until I saw for the second year in a row the pride of Pittsburgh — the Primanti Bros. sandwich — won the top spot.

Now, I demand answers.

Am I a little bitter that my hometown Lebanon Bologna didn't go on a Cinderella run? A little, but hear me out.

I don't know how much you know about Pennsylvania but a lot of good stuff is made there. I mean, this year's final four (little Fs to not run into legal issues) consisted of the Primanti sandwich, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Mrs. T's Pierogies, and Crayola Crayons.

Three of those four things are delicious, while the other is a Primanti sandwich.

Alright, I kid (kind of), but the coolest thing in a state that makes some very cool stuff? I don't think so.

For the uninitiated, a Primanti Bros. sandwich is a regular sandwich with fries and coleslaw on it. For some reason that's considered culinary atom-splitting in Western PA. 

I don't get it, but that's not the part of the state I hail from (I'm from south central PA. Let's hear it for Shoo-Fly Pie!), so to each their own… but that doesn't make it right.

I don't know how this bracket defined "cool," but it doesn't seem to have followed the Fonzarelli Laws of Coolness. (Getty Images)

‘Cool’ Was Loosely Defined In This Bracket

First of all, what does cool mean? Are we talking about "Fonzie cool?" Because if that's the case, Martin Guitars should win in a landslide over Primanti sandwiches. 

If we're talking "cool" as it relates to the Fonzie-defined version of the word, learning how to play a nice PA-made guitar can get you laid while eating a greasy sammich will more than likely give you diarrhea. 

You tell me which one is cooler.

So if that's not how this shaped up. I don't think people were voting according to the Fonzarelli Laws of Coolness, instead, it just came down to things people liked, regardless of their inherent coolness. 

That's fine, we can do that. It's what led so we get a championship matchup between Reese's and Primanti sandwiches instead of a Martin Guitars and Yuengling Lager throwdown for the ages.

Public sentiment easily favors the Reese's Cup over the Primanit sandwich, yet the opposite proved to occur in the "Coolest Thing In Pennsylvania" bracket. (Getty Images)

The Pro-Primanti Results Don't Track With What You'll Find In Real Life

Here's my biggest problem: these results do not reflect what I've found to be true in real life from many hours of hard research.

If you asked a group of people to give you yay or nay to Primanti sandwiches (and I have done this many times), the best Primanti could hope for is to split the room 50-50. They're polarizing.

If you bring the Reese's Peanut Butter cup up the same way, you'd get a bunch of yays and then maybe one nay from someone with an alleged nut allergy and another one from a guy who just thought he could up his coolness level don't the Fonzarelli coolness quotient by being a contrarian.

The Reese's Cup would win big if we just asked a random group of people on the street.

But not here. Not in this bracket.

I'm not saying I smell something nefarious afoot, but I think you've got a subset of hardcore soggy sandwich fans who are stuffing the ballot box. I know the folks at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry run a tight ship, but perhaps we need to take a step back and consider bracket voting integrity.

Anyway, congratulations to Primanti Bros. and its fans on a hard-fought path through the bracket. I may not agree with it, but they had a hell of a year in which they had to defeat PA-Made steel, Zippo lighters, Eat'n Park cookies, Sarris candies chocolates, and Mrs. T's.

That's a tough region to play through, but feel like one run-in with Yuengling Lager and it would've been over, Johnny.