The gauntlet has been thrown down. Or as they would say in Boston, the gawnt-let.

A writer at the Boston Globe named Devra First wrote an article comparing the food of St. Louis to that of Boston. It was all in the spirit of the Stanley Cup Final, and also very much in the spirit of Boston.

Do you know how Bostonians were sore losers for decades until their sports teams started winning things, and then they became sore winners? How many World Series championships have they won? Nine? That's adorable.

First's article, "Hey, St. Louis, it’s not just our hockey team that’s better. It’s our food, too," begins by making fun of St. Louis pizza and Provel, which she says "sounds like a medication for treating male-pattern baldness."

OK, that's funny.

But then she attacks toasted ravioli and even gooey butter cake. What? Do you want a fight, Ms. First? It's on. Oh, it's on.

Do you know what they eat in Boston? Scrod. The city is on the ocean, where it has access to literally the finest seafood in the world, and the best they can do is scrod?

Have you ever had a cold so bad you could only feel the texture of the food in your mouth but you couldn't taste it? That's scrod, and the texture is kind of mushy. Scrod is best thought of in existential terms, or perhaps Zen: It is a fish with the absence of flavor.

And when they aren't eating scrod, they're eating cod. Cod is basically only good for being the cheap fish in fish and chips, but as they say in Boston, "At least it's better than scrod."