Food is one of the most
important aspects of culture. Some of the best travel stories, domestic or
international, are food stories. Some travelers even see the kind of food
consumed on a trip as a measure of authenticity. I have consumed some
interesting and fun food on my journeys this year. Lately, I have been thinking
about food, memories and nostalgia lately and my trips to some classic American
diners have helped me to reminisce.
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| 1930 White Castle building on East Cermak, Chicago |
We live in a society where fast
food is ubiquitous. The lure of cheap, quick food has multiple implications.
The ease of fast food threatens to impose itself on communities. This year we saw
one Australian community, located on the edge of a national park, trying
to prevent the construction of a McDonald’s. At the same time, I find it
fascinating to discover the remnants of old franchises. I smiled when I found a
1930 White Castle building in Chicago. It reminded me of the many adventures
and late night meals I had at a White Castles in Louisville. Long before Harold and Kumar made their
quest, I drove 45 minutes while in college to get a White Castle meal.
This summer I read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
and it revived some childhood memories. It was not about “the tickler,” the utensil
of physical punishment Pip’s older sister employed during her capricious rants.
Although I do remember our next door neighbor making her nephew (or grandson)
retrieve a “switch,” a green branch from a tree so that she could administer
corporal punishment. Even as a child I thought it was cruel to make the victim
choose the instrument of his/her punishment. Instead, I was struck by the name
of the establishment where Pip and his family celebrated his bounding to
apprenticeship: the Blue Boar. This was the same name of a popular small chain
of cafeterias in Louisville. On Sunday afternoons my family would gather for a
Sunday meal after church. I distinctly remember my grandfather ordering peaches
with cottage cheese as we would walk through the displays of different foods.
It was one of his favorite salads and he would order it often.
Another dining establishment
from my early childhood was Sandy’s Restaurant on Dixie Highway. I do not
remember a lot about the restaurant except that it was one of my favorites as a
small child. I think one of the big attractions for me was that the waitresses
were very friendly and made a big fuss of me. More importantly, however, was
this was the place where I could get trees. My idea, formulated in my juvenile
mind, was that the small trees used to decorate the plates could be taken home
and planted. Of course, the small trees were, in fact, parsley sprigs – a
quaint method of decorating plates. I would dutifully collect the trees from my
parents’ and grandparents’ plates for eventual replanting. Rarely, if ever, did
I follow through, but I did have the best of intentions in my mind. If I had
been able to replant these small trees in our backyard, no doubt my parents
would have had a virtual tiny forest of parsley trees. Sandy’s is no more; it
appears to be a nail salon. It is difficult to define the link between these
restaurants and classic, nostalgic restaurants of today. My culinary tastes are
definitely become more international; however, I still find classic American cuisine,
especially breakfast, compelling.
Shippensburg has three classic
nostalgic places, the oldest of which is Goody’s Restaurant. Today, the
interior resembles an old diner with an additions surrounding the core of the
diner. In the back of the restaurant building are three small cabins, today
storage buildings, which are holdovers of a bygone era. During the 1930s and
1940s the business also had cabins where travelers could spend overnight with
many amenities of the day. The cabins are reminiscent of the auto park and
cottages in the film It Happened One Night. An old
advertisement in the restaurant for Geyer’s Cabin Camp reads: “Heated Cabins,
hot showers, kitchen, laundry, complete line of groceries, gas & oil,
garage.” Located along historic Route 11, the cabins were a popular stop along
the highway that runs from the New York-Canadian border to New Orleans. Today
the restaurant is only open for breakfast and lunch and has a candy display
case that was probably much fuller in the past. The food is cheap, and the
clientele is typically local. Breakfast, consisting of two eggs, hash browns,
orange juice and coffee, costs $5.36. The chatter in the diner, especially on
bustling Fridays, usually revolves around the weather. The day after Halloween,
after a particularly hard storm, one waitress exclaimed, “The rain was
wicked…thought my roof was going to fly off…at least it is better than snow!”
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| Eddie's Paramount Diner, Rome, New York |
The most authentic diner in
which I had a meal this year was Eddie’s Paramount Diner in Rome, New York. The
diner has eight booths and about twenty stools at the counter in an
establishment that resembles an actual railway car. I had breakfast, sitting on
a stool at the counter, on a busy Friday morning in August. My breakfast
consisted of eggs, home fries and whole wheat toast with coffee. During my
breakfast, I sat across from the pie safe, which housed a number of homemade
delights. Most of the cooking is done on a flat top grill that looked to be in great
condition, although well-used. At the far end of the diner there is a sign for
a public telephone above a wooden door. When I finished my breakfast I went to
the restroom, ostensibly to wash my hands. In fact, I wanted to have a peek at
the kitchen in the back and to see if there was actually a telephone. The
restrooms were functional, the kitchen chaotic bur clean, and just beyond the
closed door was a wooden shelf where a public telephone was once mounted.
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| Summit Diner, Somerset, Pennsylvania |
The Summit Diner in Somerset, Pennsylvania
was opened in July 1960. Sitting just off the interstate, the diner serves both
local patrons and travelers willing to spurn the predictable fast food chains
nearby. On my way to Pittsburgh in July, I stopped in for a lunch of grilled
ham and cheese, homemade coleslaw and unsweetened iced tea for $6.50. In
September two women came in while I was eating my lunch, one carrying a young
baby. An older waitress called across the diner, “How old is that baby?” The
woman, a little timidly replied, “five weeks.” The waitress exclaimed, “Good.
You have to be at least a month old to come into this diner. We may have to
card him.”
The Egg & You Diner in Fort
Lauderdale, operating since 1956, is an old hangout of my uncle. It is
diner-style restaurant that serves traditional food in a classic diner
atmosphere, complete with stools across the front of the dining room. While
visiting in November I was treated to a gyro, fries and coleslaw.
The diners serve as a window to
the past and the communities where they are located. It is difficult to imagine
the disappearance of these gathering places for the sake of eating nondescript
predictable food from chains that have more money to advertise.
