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Oldest living eGulleters tell all


Fat Guy

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oh, boy are you goingto get an eyeful....been in or afiiliated with the biz now for almost 60 years. Started in the kitchens in '44 when there were no full grown men available...I won't tell all the stories...let's just talk about changes since the 50s.

The major change from my view is the number of TRAINED cooks that started coming into the biz. I think that the GI Bill was an influence, but we were in an

enormously expanding market place......lots of new business travelers, everyone

(well my gang at least) were all on "swindle" sheets and there was the need to entertain customers.

As the hotel chains expanded, the F&B (food and beverage) managers were

mandated to produce profits.....this is when the 20/25% food and beverage cost

really came to the fore......that's why we see rape and pillage pricing today on wines especially....but has anyone noticed the price of a DRINK lately.....

Used to be a time when if I wanted gumbo or other New Orleans cusine, I'd have to plan a biz trip there just for a couple of days of good eats....then some smart

operators discovered that you could transport recipes..and now the world is available in every town and hamlet. Naturally the expansion of airlines and air

shipment had an impact which cannot be measured... I remember getting

FRESH Maine lobsters in outstate Kentucky...pricy to be sure, but FRESH.

The worst problem of the fifties is still the worst problem.....TRAINED WAIT STAFF.

tHE OWNERS spend huge sums to draw you in, the chefs are well trained and then

some :"Hi, I'm whatshisname and I'll be your server" comes along and ruins it.

SURE there are some good, nay great wait folks, but in such a minority, it's sad.

Does this give you a start?

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Check out the prawn cocktail years by simon hopkinson. You get sort of a cook's tour of the great post war hotels and gentlemans clubs.

Jimmy Villas has some very funny stories about those years in one of his books.

Edited by Wolfert (log)

“C’est dans les vieux pots, qu’on fait la bonne soupe!”, or ‘it is in old pots that good soup is made’.

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Fatguy,

As one who is two years beyond the magic number of 60, the major difference BY FAR is the proliferation of fast food and chain restaurants in the intervening time period. I'm sure there were others but back then the only chain restaurants I remember were the Howard Johnsons. For somebody who lived in Montreal, going to a Howard Johnson in nearby Plattsburgh NY(about 50 miles away) was a significant treat - well worth the hour or so drive it took to get there. I remember looking forward to the 28 flavors of ice cream, especially the pepermint stick; also the fried clams and the New England clam chowder. The only fast food restaurant I remember in Montreal was the Orange Julep(still there) where their orange drink(similar to an Orange Julius, but MUCH better), hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwich and great greasy french fries comprised the entire menu. I remember the first pizzerias, Nittolos and Pendelis probably sometime in the early to mid fifties. Today there are probably hundreds of them. It surprises me how many of the great and/or popular restaurants and food emporiums of that era or before are still around and seemingly thriving. Beautys, Moishes, Schwartzs, Yangtze, Fairmount and St Visteur Bagel Bakeries, Snowdon Deli,le Paris, Alouette Steak House, les Halles, Desjardins, the Beaver Club, Da Giovanni are still in business. Others such as the Steinbergs grocery stores, Miss Montreal, Piazza Tomasso, House of Wong and numerous others have bit the dust.

We moved to Hanover Pennsylvania in March of 1966. At the time there was only one fast food restaurant in the town, an A & W Root Beer. Today, even though the population has increased somewhat, but not all that much, there are probably thirty or even more, plus probably twenty or so pizzerias. If there's a fast food chain, chances are there is at least one of them in Hanover.

When we first moved here there was not a single Chinese restaurant in town. If we wanted Chinese food, we had to go to Baltimore or Harrisburg. Today we have at least ten Chinese restaurants including two buffets, even one which has a quite acceptable sushi bar.There are also many chains such as Ruby Tuesday, Damons, Ryans Steak House, Perkins, Hoss' Steak House, Red Lobster, Pizza Hut, Bonanza, Doc Holidays, Panera and others that don't come immediately to mind.

A positive trend has been in what we regularly find in our supermarkets today. Even in the small town that I live in fresh and sometimes exotic fruits and vegetables are more the norm than the exception. There is far more variety in fresh, frozen, canned and baked goods.

That's all that comes imediately to mind. I'm sure I'll probably have more thoughts later.

Porkpa

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Correction. In my previous post I said there was only one fast food restaurant when we moved to Hanover in 1966. That should be amended to read one CHAIN fast food restaurant. There was an A & W, since replaced by a McDonalds and a local fast food joint called Tropical Treat still in business and thriving. Tropical Treat is a drive in that could have come out of American Graffiti. They are open from March 15 till the end of September. They are closed on Sunday. It is a family owned enterprise and family members are always around. The place is always packed. Its very good for fast food, far better than any chain that comes to mind. March 15, when Tropical Treat opens is almost like a holiday in the town. People place their pickup orders hours before the restaurant opens at 5.00 PM. Our housekeeper Brenda annually buys us two Italian Cheesesteak subs(mine with extra onions and peppers, no lettuce, Marlene's regular. Its an old fashined drive in where you park at a microphone(if you can find a parking spot) and order your food. Its then brought to you by a youngster, who is working there after school and through the Summer. Its really pretty darn good.

Porkpa

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My husband who grew up in Detroit has these memories;" In Royal Oak, there was

The Sign of the Beefeater, a typical 1950's buffet. We'd go in the evenings : they always had the salad bar first, then the sides. The idea was that you'd load up your plate before the main course. There was a guy who sliced roast beef au jus paper thin. And there was always jello for dessert.

In 1958, Beefeater Gin threatened to file suit, so they changed the name to Sign of the Beef Carver. Forty years later, we were visiting there and we went to the restaurant: the same draperies were still up.

Downtown restaurant was Carl's Chophouse. Carl's was a hangout for the Detroit mob. The food was large chops, slabs of beef and iceburg lettuce.

Joe Muer's downtown: it was a famous hangout for the Detroit mob and politicians. The waiters wore tuxedos. At that time it was in a respectable area of town. They did lobster, fresh seafood: it was one of the first interior USA restaurants to fly in fresh seafood back in the days when Eastern Airlines had prop planes. Tuna steaks, lobster tails: they were broiling fish before it became fashionable. They also had shrimp cocktail and horseradish sauce and large wedges of iceberg lettuce and hard, red tomato quarters with Thousand Island dressing.

In Greektown, there was The Grecian Gardens . They did moussaka, feta cheese on non-iceberg lettuce, wonderful olive oils and breads. There were also the Polish restaurants in Hamtramck. I learned there that Polish haute cuisine was actually French. We ate beef tips with sauce. The sauces were wonderful. Lots of anise and cabbage. For dessert, there was always fruit in season with cream on it. But you didn't go down there much because of the gang killings going on ."

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Check out the prawn cocktail years by simon hopkinson.

FG:

i'm only 38, but you might also want to check out:

"American Gourmet: Classic Recipes, Deluxe Delights, Flamboyant Favorites, and Swank 'Company' Food from the 50's and 60's" by the Sterns. it's mostly about campy food, but it traces a lot of historical and demographic trends/influences. perhaps you already know this book.

how can i put an eGullet-commission link to Amazon with the above book title?

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the ocean."

--Isak Dinesen

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I will wade in here with the other 50-somethings.

I remember going to the Automat with my grandmother- I don't remember much about what the food tasted like. I also watched Jackie Gleason's tv show and recall feeling so sad I cried(I was 7 or 8) when he did the "poor soul" routine who always lost his money and never succeeded in eating anything there!

When I was a freshman at Wellesley in 1965, a friend and I were taken to Lock-Obers on a blind date by 2 visiting Princeton students from the Midwest-we were the fortunate beneficiaries of their parents' recommendation to go to Lock-Obers when coming to Boston. The food, service, and ambiance upstairs were quite astounding! Never saw these boys again, however. A few years later when I was first married, my husband and I were (financially)starving students but had such a craving for their wonderful Baked Alaska that we called one evening and they let us come to the restaurant later just for dessert! I thought that was very classy of Lock-Obers. :wub:

A really classic place was Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound on Mount Desert Island, Maine. It hasn't changed in 40 years and is still run by the same family.

Roz

Edited by rshorens (log)
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A few more words------

As I grew up in a Boston suburb, I can only report on what I experienced in that area in the late 30s and 40s. In the 50 I finally experienced the 'big' world out there.

Because the 30s were not THAT long after the crash, many people in my area just didn't go out to restaurants that often. It was something special to do so. We had Ham's, which was essentially a Friendly's kind of place. Most popular after going to the movies, to get a Frappe or a hamburg. They may have served regular meals, but it was mostly a hang-out kind of place. There were 2 of them in my town of Winthrop -- pop 17,000?

Because people watched their pennies, a cheap place to go was Chinatown in Boston, and that is where I have my first clear memory of going to a restaurant. Little towns did not have their local Chinese restaurant or take-out. AAMOF, ethnic restaurants were not the norm. We went to Boston for true restaurant eating, be it Italian or just a plain old common ordinary restaurants. When International menus came into being, it meant an upclasse type of place.

Maybe that is the big difference that I see ---- ethnic places can be found everywhere!

Being from Boston, seafood places were all up and down the highways, or in places along the ocean. Good seafood that was 'in season'. It had to be fresh and local as there wasn't the transportation speed we have now. The 'catch of the day' actually was. It wasn't flown in from Europe or even the NW.

Vegetables also followed in the same manner. Corn came from the fields and most fresh vegetables were also 'in season'. Now you can get asparagus and all vegetables, year round. Because of that, there are many more vegetable choices. Having vegetables year round may be a blessing, but having the first asparagus in early spring, or corn from the first harvest was pretty special. Be it at home, or in restaurants, seasonal foods always semed to taste better.

What has stayed the same? Quality ruled then and rules now. However, the popularity of a place can be because of a critics words. A good review seems to ensure a crowded place, even tho the good chef may have moved on. So it seems that the closer communication ---be it magazine, newspapers, or the internet may have its negatives. When a place becomes an 'in' place it seems to remain, unless a critic follows up.

To add to the "Hello! My name is Kevin, and I'll be your waiter for the evening" --- the newer habit of the waiter/waitress stooping to be at table level to speak to you is ridiculous. Whoever started that stupid practice should be forced to eat stale bread.

It is foolish to compare prices of meals then and now, as everything is relative. Paying $5 for a lobster dinner was steep, in the past, when income was below $10,000.

What has come , gone and come back again? Mashed potatoes! The return of homey foods is welcome ---- look at the popularity of Boston Market. Meatloaf and homestyle foods have regained respect in restaurants.

I miss the feeling of eating out as being pretty special. Something you really looked forward to. I miss the good manners you would see in restaurants. I'll have to think about what I don't miss.

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Although I have worded this as though my observations were universally true, I am fully aware that my views are of one person in one rural Midwest area. I’ve gone into a lot of detail because my experiences are so different from those of the East Coaster’s who have replied so far.

The 40’s

My first remembrance of being in a restaurant is at the end or just after the end of WWII. On leaving a diner type restaurant in a small town in northern Illinois, we spied a small display of candy bars at the cash register, Hershey’s chocolate, Mounds, maybe one or two others. This was amazing because there WERE no candy bars at that time, all had gone for the boys overseas and these were probably black market. My dad bought one for each of us, a real treat.

At that time in a rural area, there were very few restaurants. People ate at drug store lunch counters, mom & pop style diners, cafes and cafeterias. My dad took us to every high school football and basketball game from the time I was about 12, and we always went out for a hamburger afterwards. One place had barbequed hamburgers they called Rocket Burgers and hot dogs wrapped in bacon with cheese they called Buzz Bombs after war time weapons.

Our main shopping was done in the Quad Cities (Davenport, IA, Rock Island, Moline and East Moline, IL) about 40 miles away where there were other dining choices. The more stylish food was found mainly in hotel dining rooms, like the Blackhawk Hotel. They had a delicious chicken pot pie with the vegetables cooked separately and combined at the end, which I ordered when my step-grandmother took me there for lunch. There were a few really classy places that were more like supper clubs, because they served alcohol. I had my first taste of liquor in a place called The Plantation when a friend of my parents let me taste her grasshopper.

In that part of the country, there is a cafeteria chain called Bishop’s, which is still in existence although the food is not nearly as good today. They had a chocolate pie everyone was crazy about, but I always got bread pudding for dessert, and still long to recreate that particular taste.

Occasionally we would travel a couple of hours to the Amana Colonies, always for Sunday dinner because that’s the only time one of the best restaurants there served their special “hash” with the meal. Other times my parents’ card club members would all go out to dinner at Ina Mae’s in Muscatine, IA. Ina Mae’s was on the Mississippi and the ground was littered with shells from the button factory with little holes punched in them. The restaurant was famous for their catfish and their salad dressing which everyone was always unsuccessful in duplicating. The restaurant was a nice place with a rather unexpected juke box in the waiting room, featuring popular tunes mixed with a few country artists. There I heard Jimmy Wakely singing the first country music cheating song “Slippin’ Around” with Margaret Whiting in 1949.

Speaking of salads, all salads were iceberg lettuce back then, either in wedges or called a “tossed salad” or “combination salad”--those with a few paltry carrot shreds or a pale tomato slice added. Salad bars had never been heard of.

I attended twelve grades of school in the same building—high schoolers simply moved upstairs—and that school never had a kindergarten or a cafeteria while I attended. My school lunches, when I didn’t bring them, were eaten at one of two little cafes within a couple blocks of the school. Hot roast beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy, chili, and chicken and dumplings were popular. I favored hot dogs, 15 cents, mashed potatoes and gravy, 10 cents, and lime Popsicles.

The 50s

Much of what was true in the 40s continued in the 50s. Restaurants continued to be diners, cafes, cafeterias, hotel dining rooms and supper clubs. Foods were made from scratch of good quality ingredients. Not all food was good, however, since bad cooks are ever with us. Women and girls wore skirts all the time, and everyone seemed to be well dressed when they went out. Most entertaining was done at home; few women worked and all women cooked, whether they liked it or not. And there were plenty of pot lucks, church suppers, fish frys, ice cream socials and wiener roasts to compete with restaurant dining.

Smorgasbords started coming to this part of the country, probably the forerunners of salad bars and all-you-can-eat buffets. My Dad ate at “A Little Bit of Sweden” in Chicago and couldn’t stop talking about it. When I finally went, I was intrigued by tongue, which I had never eaten, and raspberry jelly, a jelled fresh raspberry juice a la Jell-o, not a jelly as we know it.

In my high school years, dating consisted about 90% of drive-in movies, so eating in the car was big. The first chain/takeout I was aware of served chicken, fries and cranberry sauce. We went out for Maid-Rites and dinner-plate-sized breaded pork tenderloins.

Proms were held in the school gym, limos and tuxes unheard of, and the dinner catered by a ladies church group; the Methodist and Presbyterian ladies would each submit a menu and the juniors would vote.

On to college—the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1956—and more cafeteria adventures, both eating and working in a dorm cafeteria. I grew up eating good food and I considered the dorm food very good and sometimes excellent, like the huge cinnamon or orange rolls on Saturday mornings. The exception came on certain Wednesdays when most everyone went out for dinner. The Magna Decca (Big Ten, get it?) Restaurant served nice ham with a sauce of canned fruit cocktail. OK, it wasn’t gourmet, but ten times better than the stewed celery with soy sauce that the dorm called Chop Suey.

At school I was introduced to my first pizza and Italian beef sandwiches, for Champaign-Urbana is “Chicago South”. I have never surpassed or even equaled either food since. The pizza was topped with a luscious thick layer of cheese, not the see through layer of today’s chains. Italian beef was served on wonderful Italian rolls with pepperoncini, dripping with beef juices. I also had my first sausage po-boy in the “bad” part of town.

Summer after my sophomore year I spent in Chicago, working for the State’s Attorney, whose son, also named Ben Adamowski, was a friend of my fiancée. Ben Jr., on hearing I’d never eaten lobster, treated me to my first at the Palmer House Grill. I don’t remember anything about the lobster, except for liking it, but I do remember my awe at finding that a place called a “grill” could be a fancy white tablecloth restaurant.

I watched my pennies very carefully that summer, allowing two breakfasts each week of the bacon and egg kind with “Volare” playing, one of donuts at Wimpy’s, and two lunches at this cafeteria where I indulged in Polish sausage with green beans and a slice of fresh raspberry pie, the uncooked kind, with whipped cream. I don’t remember where I took my other breakfasts and lunches. My cheap dinners I took in the restaurant of the women’s dorm where I lived. They consisted mostly of corned beef hash and cottage cheese and pear salad.

My wedding luncheon was held in a hotel in Urbana. I’ll never know what delights I might have selected, as my fiancée was a picky eater and I let him pick the menu of pot roast, mashed potatoes, corn and salad. Ho-hum, but we later had good celebration meals at the hotel. I usually ended dinner with a parfait, quite popular then.

As poor newlyweds in Chicago we couldn’t afford much besides pizza and corned beef on a Kaiser roll (my first) at the deli down the block. So whatever the food picture was in Chicago in the late 50s, I wasn’t aware of it. Several jobs took us downstate, where we found a delightful restaurant that reaped every spare penny we could find for their delicious garlicky potatoes and fried chicken.

In 1959 we took a belated honeymoon in Florida and on the way (Georgia?) I was exposed to my first “No coloreds allowed” sign in a restaurant window. I refused to go in, but was finally convinced by a person who had driven down with us that this sign would appear everywhere so if I didn’t want to go hungry, I’d better relent. The later revelations of Key Lime Pie and ocean fresh seafood didn’t make up for this distasteful experience.

60s

Back to Champaign-Urbana to find McDonalds #3 now in business with the how-many-sold sign in the thousands, not even a million, let alone billions. (The first of the chain was in Chicago, not a suburb.) We lived across the street from a Spudnut shop and frequented these two places more than anywhere else, as we soon had two children and became ever-poorer students.

After graduation we moved briefly to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and then on to Louisville, KY, where I had my first chateaubriand and first eggs benedict, and found one of my most favorite all-time restaurants. It was outside Shelbyville, where Colonel Sanders and his wife ran their own restaurant serving seven different vegetables with your choice of chicken, steak or ham. Restaurants were burgeoning in the 60s, with many excellent choices in Louisville.

I’ve always loved to eat out, but found after pursuing cooking (thanks, Julia) that I mostly preferred to do it myself. So I’ll let the under 60’s take over telling you about the 60’s.

Summary

One thing that has really changed is that back then all restaurants were family restaurants. Babysitters were used rarely and the kids went everywhere the parents went

As for a woman dining alone, I don’t like to do it, so almost always opt for take out when the situation arises. What I miss most from the 40’s and 50’s is knowing that the food was cooked by real live people back in the kitchen, rather than coming frozen off the Sysco truck.

Ruth Dondanville aka "ruthcooks"

“Are you making a statement, or are you making dinner?” Mario Batali

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Although I have worded this as though my observations were universally true, I am fully aware that my views are of one person in one rural Midwest area.  I’ve gone into a lot of detail because my experiences are so different from those of the East Coaster’s who have replied so far....

...Back to Champaign-Urbana to find McDonalds #3 now in business with the how-many-sold sign in the thousands, not even a million, let alone billions.  (The first of the chain was in Chicago, not a suburb.) 

It's so interesting to read ruthcooks' post and hear the perspective from the rural midwest as compared to the east.

My curiosity got the best of me at the comment that McDonalds came to Chicago first, rather than suburbia, since I have long thought their growth was first in suburbia, so I searched at McDonald's corporate site, McDonald's History, and found that Ray Kroc's very first McDonalds's was actually in Des Plaines, Illinois, (now a suburb of Chicago)

Where it all began, Des Plaines, Illinois

Ray Kroc opened the Des Plaines restaurant in 1955. First day's revenues-$366.12! No longer a functioning restaurant, the Des Plaines building is now a museum containing McDonald's memorabilia and artifacts, including the Multimixer!

Edited by afoodnut (log)
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I'm humbled by these responses. Ruth, I just read your post out loud to my wife -- we laughed, we cried . . . it was great. And it's especially gratifying to see a new voice here -- welcome Ted Task.

Let me try to crystallize a few issues, some of which I'm drawing from the comments here and some of which are simply on my mind. I'm wondering if those who have already posted (and those who haven't) have any comments on the following:

- My own memories, back to the 1970s, are somewhat contradictory on the question of ingredients. It seems to me there have been both amazing improvements and remarkable declines. For example, the availability of fresh vegetables of all kinds that we have today would have been unthinkable in the past, yet today it's extremely difficult to get high quality beef and pork. What are your recollections of ingredients back in the 1950s and earlier? What was better, what was worse, and is anything the same?

- When was the first time you all dined at a formal restaurant with white tablecloths and tuxedoed waiters? What did you eat? How does that experience compare to dining at a top-rated restaurant today -- a French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, or the equivalent?

- How has service changed? The "my name is Brad" issue has of course come up, but has anything else gotten better or worse?

- Who is the first restaurant "celebrity chef" you remember hearing of? How has your own view of chefs evolved over time? Presumably, in the 1950s you couldn't have named a single famous American restaurant chef because there weren't any -- how and when did that change for you, and what do you think about it?

- I'm in the South right now, where the vestiges of Prohibition are much more pronounced than in the North. I don't think it occurred to me until a couple of days ago, when our friend Wayne told us about the fairly recent decision to allow "by the drink" liquor sales in his county, and how that led to the almost immediate opening of dozens of new restaurants serving food at a much higher level than what had existed in the county before, how important the history of Prohibition and dry counties has been to the history of restaurants. I doubt we have any eGulleters with clear memories of Prohibition, but does anybody have any thoughts on the liquor-restaurant connection and how it has evolved over the years.

- On the international front, I didn't mean to scare anybody away -- I'd love to hear your early memories of overseas travel, and of cuisine in Europe and beyond.

- Aside from what I've listed here, what do you all think are the salient points of comparison between restaurants then and now?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Jo-Mel: I'm very interested in the status of women in fine dining over the years. There's still not equality, but I can only imagine what it was like in the old days! And don't even get me started on how restaurants have historically treated ethnic minorities. (By the way, it's not a whole book -- this information is for one chapter in a book about the restaurant business and restaurant culture in general.)

The "old days" aren't that old. On the customer's side - some public restaurants - like McSorley's in New York - didn't allow women until about 1970 - and it wasn't because it wanted to. And there are still many private clubs (eating and other types of clubs) that don't allow women - or blacks - or hispanics - or Jews - except in possibly a very token way. Many that did change their rules and the way they operate only did so in the 80's after they got a lot of pressure from large corporate clients that didn't want to look discriminatory (and a lot of those clients dropped their memberships - resulting in financial problems). But - when it comes to the real big-time - not the eating clubs in Miami whose business was suffering - all that discimination is still there. I wish it wasn't necessary to have this kind of website - but it is.

And - even when you're allowed into a place - it doesn't mean you're welcomed. A year or two ago - a black Florida legislator went to a restaurant in Florida and was told he'd be served - but only if he sat in the back of the restaurant or ordered takeout (can't remember which).

On the restaurant's side - I don't think much has changed at all. You rarely see a female server in a very fancy restaurant despite several lawsuits (for those of you who are big fans of Joe's Stone Crabs in Miami Beach - that lawsuit lasted a long time). Or a woman head chef - or line chef (at least in an open kitchen). There are more females with the title of "pastry chef" - but that's like corporate type organizations where women always get to be the secretary. Even in the pastry area - if women were equal - it wouldn't be necessary - as this month's Wine Spectator did - to distinguish between the cooking styles of female pastry chefs and male pastry chefs. We'd just be talking about the different styles of different pastry chefs. (BTW - the men were thought to be kind of wild - while the women were supposedly more restrained - IOW - they were stereotyping.)

The same applies to black people. In the last 2 weeks - I have been to 2 pretty good restaurants where I live. Both had open kitchens. Saw 1 women in those kitchens (a pastry person of course) - and no black people (which is kind of unusual since the black population in this general area is probably over 30%). As for hispanics - didn't see any hispanics either. The only place you see them "in front" here is - believe it or not - Japanese sushi places. We have a very small Japanese population - and - when hispanics with certain facial features get dressed up in a certain way - they're thought to look Japanese. Sounds pretty stupid - but it really happens.

And I don't think what I'm seeing here is unusual. When I go to a trendy restaurant in a big city - I usually see the same thing. The last 3 big deal restaurants I went to in NY were AD - Le Cirque 2000 - and Jean Georges. In Atlanta it was the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton. LA was Wolfgang Puck's Place - in Beverly Hills and a few other places. Ditto with Chicago. I don't recall seeing a single black person in any of them (and even if there are one or two - what's the black population in these cities? - they're not exactly Utah). Heck - you know more people in the restaurant industry than I do. Why don't you ask the people you know why there aren't more women or black men working in restaurants "in the front" (it's not like they're all employed - there was an article in our "local" NYT this week which estimates the unemployment rate of black men in New York at about 50%). I have my own theories - but I'll keep them to myself for now.

So - I guess as far as I'm concerned - we're still in the dark ages when it comes to restaurants. It is one of the last "good old boy" bastions left in the US. What makes you think that much has changed except a small part of the veneer? If you were planning to write that the old days were terrible - and today almost everything is "hunky-dory" - I think you'd be taking the wrong approach. Robyn

P.S. I am 56 and my husband is 58. I have been fighting discrimination against women for about 40 years now. When it comes to eating - that started when I was told about my first law clerk's luncheon - but was also told I couldn't attend because the club at which it was held didn't allow women to eat there (and I clerked for the most liberal large law firm in Philadelphia). So I take all of this stuff pretty seriously. Please don't pretend that everything is swell now - because it isn't.

Edited by robyn (log)
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Ruth is so right about the iceberg lettuce.

Not only was it THE lettuce of choice, but the dressings were clear, (Italian) and pink, (French) -- or of course a type of Thousand Island / Russian. When the health/Mother Earth movement with its fresh sprouted seeds came along, in the 50s, the salad bars appeared. I don't know the history of salad bars, or when the vast variety of greens gained their foothold, but they seem to give salads their own special position.

(My Mother's verion of salad was iceberg lettuce topped with chopped tomatoes and cukes, mixed with mayo --- as a dressing.

There was a time, in the 50s, when some restaurants -- mostly steakhouses in my area -- began to offer a BIG wedge of iceberg, with your choice of dressing to eat BEFORE you were served your steak. Some said that it was a way of filling you up, and filling in time, while you waited for the steak. Along with the steak came huge baked Idahos with your choice of sour cream or butter, and bacon --- or all three. I wonder if that was the beginning of the monstrous servings that have become so popular.

Iceberg lettuce may be another of those items that was once popular, faded away as the yuppie greens appeared, but has again appeared and respected for its crispness.

I wonder if the Chinese Lettuce Wraps have helped foster this?

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I am under age 50 but recall a comment made by a former customer of mine and am curious to get feedback on it from more seasoned forum members with developed palates who also have good culinary memories.

Years ago I worked as a waiter in Syracuse NY's Hotel Syracuse - once a grande dame by regional standards but by the early 80's already fading. The hotel had several full time residents - typically people of means who were alone and preferred the convenience of hotel living despite the price. Most took the majority of their meals in the more upscale of the hotel's two restaurants. One elderly gentleman, probably in his 90's, commented several times that he missed the days when "chicken really tasted like chicken". I was raised in a household where subtleties of taste were not a topic to be considered or discussed - food was just food. My customer, on the other hand, appeared to still have an acute palate and specifically referenced "the way they raise them these days" when referring to chicken.

Poultry farms were certainly not a new phenomenon byt then (the early 80's) but even I remember chicken having more flavor 30 years ago than it usually does now. When did the big change really occur? Do some of you recall a time when the chicken one typically bought in a meat market or grocery store was closer to (or better than!) the free range chickens now available in some places?

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I am under age 50 but recall a comment made by a former customer of mine and am curious to get feedback on it from more seasoned forum members with developed palates who also have good culinary memories.

Years ago I worked as a waiter in Syracuse NY's Hotel Syracuse - once a grande dame by regional standards but by the early 80's already fading. The hotel had several full time residents - typically people of means who were alone and preferred the convenience of hotel living despite the price.  Most took the majority of their meals in the more upscale of the hotel's two restaurants. One elderly gentleman, probably in his 90's, commented several times that he missed the days when "chicken really tasted like chicken".    I was raised in a household where subtleties of taste were not a topic to be considered or discussed - food was just food.  My customer, on the other hand, appeared to still have an acute palate and specifically referenced "the way they raise them these days" when referring to chicken.

Poultry farms were certainly not a new phenomenon byt then (the early 80's) but even I remember chicken having more flavor 30 years ago than it usually does now.  When did the big change really occur? Do some of you recall a time when the chicken one typically bought in a meat market or grocery store was closer to (or better than!) the free range chickens now available in some places?

Don't always take at face value what old people tell you. It is fairly well established that - in many people - sensory perceptions - including taste - diminish as age advances. The exact same chicken someone ate when he/she was 40 - and enjoyed a lot - could well be relatively tasteless when that person eats it at age 90 (especially if the person is wearing dentures). My husband and I have 3 elderly living parents. They would salt their food to death if they could without dying of congestive heart failure. As it is - they usually douse their food with something else (frequently lots of pepper) so they can taste something. Robyn

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I'm no expert on chicken in restaurants, as I couldn't bother cutting it off the bones ---- politly.

Could the taste difference be in what the chickens were fed 'in the old days'??

When I was in China, the chicken DID indeed have a different flavor than the chicken in this country. (it WAS chicken, BTW) The first time I noticed it was in the 80s and all of us noticed the taste difference. It was much stronger than what we expected, but we knew it was chicken because of the texture and close examination. Chickens, at that time in China, ran around. Even the texture was tougher. This was not just one visit in one place. I noticed it in many places, over a period of years.

Just a thought ---- the feed given to the chickens? Also, fresh chickens as compared to frozen?

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I have truly enjoyed reading most of these posts. Ruthcooks was beautifully written, interesting, and affecting all at the same time.

And this line by afoodnut rang so true for me I sent him a note about it-

Small towns were often described as too small to have a McDonald's. And later, it became, so small, the only place to eat is at McDonalds.

If you grew up in as rural an area of the South as I did and remember the world before the interstate came through (I do, I-20 runs THROUGH our farm and that section of it was not completed until about 1969) you have no idea how true his observation about McDonalds is all across the South.

As far as chickens go I have the opportunity to eat (not regularly, but 4 or 5 times a year) yard chickens. I also, everyday, get to eat yard eggs. I am here to tell anyone who wants to argue that Tysons and Pilgrim's Pride are better, or even the same, that they are not only wrong but that they have non functioning taste buds. Grain fed semi free chickens (I am not talking about namby pamby free range chickens but chickens that live in the back of the house in a hen house or in semi free roaming) are a whole nother world from chickens raised in breeder operations. No comparison, at all. In a blind tasting anyone could tell which one they liked the best and 100 out of 100 times it would be the yard bird.

This is a very interesting thread. Thanks to Fat Guy and to all of his correspondents.

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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I've lost plenty of tastebuds and brain cells thus far, but can still taste and think somewhat coherently. My sensory memory tells me that chicken in the 1970s was tougher than today but had more flavor. That's on the most generic supermarket level, of course, because you can get incredibly good chicken if you want to go to the trouble or pay more money.

The subject of chicken raises an issue, though: does anybody order chicken in upscale restaurants anymore? I remember the first time I was on Arthur Schwartz's show, somebody called in and asked me if I thought it was possible to judge restaurants -- as Craig Claiborne did -- on the quality of their roasted chicken. My first thought was that on most upscale restaurant menus today there isn't a roasted chicken to be found, and if there is one it's often only there as a token offering. There is, for example, not a single chicken dish (no less a roasted chicken) on the most recent menu I have from Jean Georges.

This goes to the point that there has been a change in orientation at high-end restaurants, from what used to be a contest of who could cook classic dishes best to today's focus on creativity. This is, in part, the reason that the Michelin guides are losing their relevance. But, while I'm in favor of creativity and especially the culinary avant garde, I can't help but think that something has been lost by abandonment of the classics. The classics provided a framework and set a standard; now, there is no point of reference.

A couple of weeks ago, when I had dinner at La Cote Basque, I was blown away by two dishes: a simple foie gras terrine, and the restaurant's signature cassoulet. I had just been to Per Se the night before and had a really nice foie gras torchon, but it didn't hold a candle to what La Cote Basque was serving. More important from my perspective, though, is that I felt stupid: had I not gone to La Cote Basque that night, I'd have thought the Per Se foie gras was the top of the New York hierarchy.

It also reminded me that reviewers of restaurants today have a very different job than they did in the past. Presumably, back in the day, I could have gone around to every fine-dining restuarant in town and ordered a half-dozen matching dishes -- like cassoulet, or roasted chicken, or whatever -- and easily put those restaurants in rank order based on that comparison. Now, one rarely gets a chance to say "The foie gras at restaurant X is better than at restaurant Y." I can't really even say it about Per Se and La Cote Basque, because the two dishes were different -- but they were close enough.

The cassoulet experience was similar. We made cassoulet for New Year's eve according, loosely, to Christian Delouvrier's recipe. It was the best cassoulet I'd ever had. Until La Cote Basque reminded me that I'm an amateur cook. The cassoulet at La Cote Basque was in a totally different league.

What was I talking about?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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What was I talking about?

You were talking about chicken.

I am a person who still eats chicken at fancy restaurants. Or fish (although - in a really fancy restaurant - the fish course might be served as a separate course after the appetizer and before the meat course). But I do love roasted chicken. Best chicken I ever had was at La Mere Blanc - bresse chicken - the most perfect roasted chicken in the world. Can't compare it with regular chicken - or even the "upscale" chicken you'll get at a fancy restaurant in the US. It's like comparing chocolate from Maison du Chocolate with a Hershey bar.

On the other hand - I suspect the chicken the fellow in Syracuse was eating was pretty much the same chicken he'd been eating for a long time - and he just had more difficulty tasting what he was eating.

I think you're right about the inability to compare apples with apples these days. Used to be that you would judge a chef by how he prepared something like a roasted chicken - or perhaps a fish with a simple sauce (like a beurre blanc). Once you knew he had mastered the basics - you would trust him on the new stuff. There are analogues in other disciplines. E.g., Picasso was a great figurative painter. So I always tried to learn all I could about his non-figurative work. Robyn

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About chickens…back then, chickens were all free range or “yard” chickens, as Brooks calls them. They definitely tasted better, probably due to the varied diet, and it was necessary to cook them longer for tenderness. Farmers raised them from baby chicks in the spring; around six weeks most of them were butchered for frying hens, with the remainder kept for laying hens. Occasionally, or when they were too old, a laying hen would be killed for stewing. This is the origin of “tough old bird” I’m sure.

When I referred above to growing up with good food, some of you were probably skeptical given the restaurant descriptions. What I meant was that growing up on a family farm we ate seasonal food. Our vegetables and fruits were grown on the farm, or traded with other farmers, or picked at specialty farms. We picked morels and blackberries and asparagus in the wild. We gorged on strawberries, corn on the cob, tomatoes, knowing we would not taste their like again for a year. We raised our own pork, beef, lamb, poultry. Much of the summer was spent in canning, freezing, pickling, and preserving. Many farms had root cellars—ours was a “cave”—to store potatoes and apples, mostly.

Grocery stores were very small, simply because there wasn’t much to sell. We bought things like sugar, flour, cheese, ice cream, iceberg lettuce, Jell-O, bread, and canned goods when we either didn’t raise it or ran out. My dad bought cases of stuff we used most: crushed pineapple, catsup, tuna and tomato soup. There were a few prepared foods like Hostess cupcakes and pineapple pies, and a chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream cake roll called Newlyweds we all loved. We got our first television set when I was twelve in 1950, and TV dinners and cake mixes became available.

I swear that all of the available meat back then was graded prime. When I first heard stores bragging because they featured choice I thought they were crazy. No one back then would ever dream of eating anything graded choice, much less select, barely a step up from a grade that used to be (perhaps still is, but I haven’t heard the term for a few years) called “canners and cutters”.

Ruth Dondanville aka "ruthcooks"

“Are you making a statement, or are you making dinner?” Mario Batali

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Fat Guy --- You wrote about matching dishes being different. I call that "The Meatloaf Syndrome".

Everyone makes meatloaf and usually they are all good, but they are all different. My meatloaf is different from the gal next door, and the hash house down the street. All good, all different, all called 'meatloaf'.

Back to your original question about changes over the decades: Back then, items were flat on the plate. There was a place for the Grilled T-Bone, which lay beside the French Fried Onions which lay beside the Green Beans Almondine. You still find that arrangement nowadays, of course, but artistic cooking has introduced 'horizontal' displays, with the fried onions on top of the steak, which may be on top of the beans, or the beans may be displayed as a frame for the steak, with a scattering of almonds for added visual effect.

I don't know when the artistry effect came into being, but the only time I remember having food on top of each other was something like a Fried Clam Platter, when the clams were piled on top of the fries because of the lack of room. No artistic intent at all.

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On the other hand - I suspect the chicken the fellow in Syracuse was eating was pretty much the same chicken he'd been eating for a long time - and he just had more difficulty tasting what he was eating.

The point I failed to make adequately in my post was that this gentleman, in contrast to many folks in his age group, appeared not to have suffered that significant decline in his ability to discern subtle changes in taste or texture. He had no complaints about our fish or beef - only the chicken. I'm curious as to when the real shift to the type of mass production chicken farms occurred. I refer to the Tyson and Perdue style factories in which special feeds and techniques are used to pump out "full-sized" chickens in half that Mother Nature would take to grow them. I have to wonder if, as someone else has pointed out, the feed is an issue. I've purchased and prepared "free range" chicken within the past few years and found it to little different from regular grocery store chicken.

Just last week I made fried chicken livers. I have customarily used the fresh ones that the gorcery store emat department had available. This time all I could get were Tyson brand frozen chicken livers. They had distinctly less flavor than the ones I've been using previously and I dont think it was just the fact that they were frozen.

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Sometime around late 1996, Jim Quinn began contributing to Philadephia's CityPaper (where Holly Moore was responsible for many of my tasty and fattening forages). He wrote an article that was basically a review of both american restaurants and restaurant reviewing during the past roughly 40 years. It was incredibly interesting and informative and would be a great addition to this thread. However, I don't have the article and didn't find it in the Citypaper archives online. Anyone have a lead on this?

Knowledge is good.

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. . . artistic cooking has introduced 'horizontal' displays, with the fried onions on top of the steak, which may be on top of the beans, or the beans may be displayed as a frame for the steak, with a scattering of almonds for added visual effect. 

This has the effect of getting much of the food away from the warmed plate and exposing it to air circulation, so that your food will have started to get cold even before it arrives at the table. In fact, if a melting effect threatens to destablize the architecture, the plate may not be warmed at all.

Scientific chefs are working on an antigravitational device which will allow soup to be served vertically.

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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