Calamari, Rhode Island's controversial state appetizer, becomes an unexpected star of the DNC
Washington Post
Rhode Island’s entry was filmed on Warwick’s sandy Oakland Beach, where state party chairman Joseph M. McNamara submitted 34 of the state’s 35 delegate votes to Joe Biden. Then McNamara, who once led a contentious, years-long campaign to give fried squid official recognition in the statehouse, made an enticing appeal to DNC viewers at home.
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“Our state appetizer, calamari, is available in all 50 states,” McNamara said, as a masked chef in a black apron silently held up a platter with crispy rings of breaded seafood in its traditional local preparation: slathered in garlic, parsley, and sliced cherry peppers.
If that sales pitch was not the outright victor of Tuesday’s roll-call video montage, it was certainly the most irreverent. Or, at least, the most characteristically Rhode Island way to make an appearance on a prime-time national stage.
“Rhode Island’s use of its DNC state roll call primarily as an opportunity to hawk calamari,” one person wrote on Twitter, “is the most on-brand of all the states and territories.”
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