A Tribe Called Quest at the table

In New York at the end of the 1990s, you didn't eat in three French-style courses — you ate to the rhythm of the street. Mornings were a sandwich gulped down at the bodega counter (the corner grocery open day and night). Midday between studio sessions was a slice of pizza folded in half, eaten standing up. On weekends, you went home to St. Albans and there the meal stretched out: the family's Caribbean cooking (Phife's Trinidadian heritage) or Southern comfort. And always, within reach, the sweetness of the corner store. Just as the band sampled jazz to make hip-hop, the city sampled all the world's cuisines on a single street.

The signature move of the bodega and New York deli: the slice of American cheese melting on the hot griddle, binding the egg, bacon or meat. This mild, ultra-melty cheese is the gourmet glue that defined the breakfast taste of every 90s New Yorker, from bike messengers to Queens rappers.