Food and Restaurants 2013

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.

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!”

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.

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.