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Food Quote by John Corry

"One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food, and only McDonald's and Burger King equalize us all"

About this Quote

New York sells itself on difference: a city where you can eat your way across continents in a single subway ride. Corry’s line flatters that myth and then punctures it with a cheap, greasy punchline. The “glory” is ethnic food as civic virtue: variety as proof of sophistication, immigration as a buffet of pleasures. But the second clause snaps the reader into the less romantic truth of urban life: the one cuisine that truly “unites” New Yorkers is mass-produced fast food, engineered to taste the same in Queens as it does in Kansas.

The verb “equalize” is doing a lot of work. It sounds democratic, almost noble, until you notice what’s being equalized: not opportunity, not dignity, just appetite flattened into corporate sameness. That’s the joke, and it’s also the critique. New York’s celebrated cosmopolitanism can be real, but it’s also consumable - a city that congratulates itself for being worldly while still relying on the same franchises as everywhere else.

There’s a quiet class angle, too. Ethnic restaurants often signal curiosity and cultural capital; McDonald’s and Burger King are the fallback, the late-night option, the affordable constant. Corry’s subtext is that pluralism isn’t just a parade of flavors; it’s a negotiation with homogenizing forces that thrive precisely because they’re frictionless. The line lands because it captures New York’s double identity: proudly specific, constantly standardized.

Quote Details

TopicFood
Source
Later attribution: The Little Red Book of New York Wisdom (Ed Koch, Gregg Stebben, 2017) modern compilationISBN: 9781510734166 · ID: lmiCDwAAQBAJ
Text match: 95.00%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
... a pack , I gathered all my stuff and went to France . DAVID SEDARIS One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food , and only McDonald's and Burger King equalize us all . JOHN CORRY New York's Fulton Street is the Vatican City of fish.
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Corry, John. (2026, March 22). One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food, and only McDonald's and Burger King equalize us all. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-of-the-glories-of-new-york-is-its-ethnic-food-113466/

Chicago Style
Corry, John. "One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food, and only McDonald's and Burger King equalize us all." FixQuotes. March 22, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-of-the-glories-of-new-york-is-its-ethnic-food-113466/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food, and only McDonald's and Burger King equalize us all." FixQuotes, 22 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/one-of-the-glories-of-new-york-is-its-ethnic-food-113466/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2026.

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One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food by John Corry
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John Corry is a notable figure.

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