"I was brought up … to be quite indifferent to what kind of food was set before me, and [am] so unobservant of it, that … I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined on," Benjamin Franklin notes in his autobiography. So he's probably not the ideal subject for a food fest.

Nevertheless more than 60 Philly restaurants are serving purported Franklin food and drink favorites through the end of the Constitution Center's "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World" exhibition. It's a clear case of restaurateurs wanting in on the tourism bonanza that is Ben's tercentenary.

Ben's authorship of several drinking songs lives on in a city that is currently awash in cranberry martinis—at least judging from the Eat, Drink and B. Franklin section of the Ben's Birthday Bulletin. Jones and Rachael's Nosheri are among many others who have seized on his "apple a day" saying as excuse to repackage their usual apple pie or cake as Ben specialties. For instance, a Rachael's employee admitted that Ben's Favorite Apple Cake and Rachael's Jewish apple cake are one and the same. "But it's delicious. We're sure Ben would have loved it."

To test the truth of that—and find out how Ben might have felt about the 100 other some-odd (some—like McGillin's pickle juice martini—really odd) items being served around town under his name—I read On the Art of Eating..., the definitive work on Ben's eating habits. That slim 1958 volume confirms Franklin's love of apples and cranberries and also contains Ben's recipe for a pastry-enclosed apple that sounds similar to (if a lot simpler than) the cranberry cheesecake-stuffed "Dogood apple dumpling" City Tavern served on Franklin's birthday and is featuring again this Presidents' Birthday week.

That colonial-food specialist City Tavern would be serving the most authentic dish of the Ben fest is hardly a surprise. But not even they are featuring the buckwheat, mutton or mincemeat pie that Franklin also prized.

Did local restaurateurs not know or just not think these things would fly today? Whatever: Franklin's 300th is offering modern-day Philadelphians a rare chance to enjoy 18th-century fare somewhere other than City Tavern. I'm thinking particularly of Philadelphia Fish & Company's fish house punch and spice cake, and the Four Seasons eateries' beef-stew-like pepper pot soup. I don't know if Ben would have liked them but you probably will.