Today’s Eponymy in August is food themed. It’s also New Jersey themed since I’m currently in New Jersey.
The Fat Darrell is a legend of the Grease Trucks that serve food around Rutgers University. As the story goes, and this story seems to be backed up, in 1997 Darrell Butler showed up at the RU Hungry food truck after a night of hard partying with a severe case of the drunchies. Not having the money to buy three sandwiches but desiring to have the contents of three different menu items, Darrell took advantage of the trucks’ general policy of making a Fat Cat sandwich — usually a double cheeseburger on a long roll — with practically any requested ingredient. Darrell asked for a Fat Cat of chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, and fries, covered in marinara sauce, and received it. Then, at least one and as many as 10 people next in line all asked for the same sandwich after having heard his order. A legend was immediately born.
The Fat Sandwich now has permuted astronomically across the state, but the original is still served at RU Grill & Pizza (a fixed location opened by Abdul Eid, the original owner of RU Hungry) and other locations under license from Fat Darrell’s, LLC (yes, really). While the Fat Darrell is a fat sandwich, Darrell Butler himself is a jacked personal trainer and a renaissance man with more accomplishments than I can list here. Read more about his impressive resume at http://www.fatdarrell.com