Read Online The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Kurlansky
Ads: Link
trays, silver, and napkins.
Dozens of illuminated metal cubicles, separated from the hungry by little plate-glass doors, exhibit single servings of some edible. Prices in nickels are posted beside the glass door: Chicken Pie 4 nickels; Hot Mince Pie 2 nickels. The trick is to push the required number of nickels into the right slot, whisk out the food before the door slams shut again, and juggle the dish onto the tray, without dropping bags, parcels, or other belongings.
Beverage pumps require three operations. The cup or glass is placed under the spout, a nickel into the slot, a handle is pushed down, and carefully measured liquid sluices into the container—cream and coffee simultaneously in balanced proportions that are the result of many surveys and much research into man’s tastes. For orders of black coffee or tea, with or without cream or lemon, an attendant must be summoned to the cubbyhole, by ringing a bell after the nickel has been deposited.
As there are no discernible vacant places at the tables during rush hours, the title of “tray jockey” is bestowed on those skilled regulars who, through long practice in broken-field running, have become adept in the business of seat-snatching.
That Automat diners return daily to their trials is not due to love of punishment but to the fact that food here is hard to beat. The hot beef or chicken pies, baked in individual deep dishes and covered with brown and flaky crusts, are among the culinary wonders of New York—produced, as they are, in perfect and uniform thousands! And the piping-hot corned beef hash, made of honest lean beef and never too sharply flavored, is as good as any man’s mother can cook.
Clam chowder, not Boston-, not New York-style, but with a flavor all its own, and English beef soup, are both so popular as to keep trade rivals sniffing around. Little pots of slow-baked beans, garnished with strips of crisp pork, rival Boston’s and the door of their cell rattles like a machine gun all day long.
Thousands breakfast on the beloved cinnamon bun, a modestly named confection stuffed with raisins and covered with treacle. This, with a cup of excellent, rich-creamed coffee, inspires many a wan New Yorker to start the day with a glow. Bread, superior corn bread, bran muffins, pies, and pastries sit in the noble company of the cinnamon bun.
At the steam table the capricious may select a complete dinner, and though portions are not large, the food is better than that obtained at many cafeterias. But the nickel-in-the-slot method is still the more popular.
Quality never varies. This accounts for the loyalty of the regulars. Such achievement in mass-production cookery is credited in part to organization, in part to a staff of the most highly paid chefs in the business. And food buying is so closely gauged that there are no left-overs at the end of the day, which is 2 a.m.
New York eats in the Automat; it does not, however, smoke or converse there. Smoking, in fact, is strictly forbidden by sign and spoken warnings. But no one minds. The Automat will flourish so long as the average New Yorker remains what he is, a person who is everlastingly fond of dropping coins into slot machines, who loves good coffee, and who knows his cinnamon buns.
New York Soda-Luncheonette Slang and Jargon
Drugstore Lunch
EDWARD O’BRIEN
T ime was when the drug store dispensed medicines. But now, as the candid rag says with but slight exaggeration, it sells everything from pins to automobiles. Not the least of the additions to the drug store is the soda-fountain luncheonette, where anything from a “C.O. cocktail” (castor oil in soda) to “Jack Benny in the red” (strawberry Jell-O) may be had.
The stool and counter has a special attraction for the woman shopper, the office worker, and the show girl. And it has certain advantages. The drug store carries a connotation of cleanliness. One juggles no tray while stalking a seat in the noonday jam. The food, though
Dozens of illuminated metal cubicles, separated from the hungry by little plate-glass doors, exhibit single servings of some edible. Prices in nickels are posted beside the glass door: Chicken Pie 4 nickels; Hot Mince Pie 2 nickels. The trick is to push the required number of nickels into the right slot, whisk out the food before the door slams shut again, and juggle the dish onto the tray, without dropping bags, parcels, or other belongings.
Beverage pumps require three operations. The cup or glass is placed under the spout, a nickel into the slot, a handle is pushed down, and carefully measured liquid sluices into the container—cream and coffee simultaneously in balanced proportions that are the result of many surveys and much research into man’s tastes. For orders of black coffee or tea, with or without cream or lemon, an attendant must be summoned to the cubbyhole, by ringing a bell after the nickel has been deposited.
As there are no discernible vacant places at the tables during rush hours, the title of “tray jockey” is bestowed on those skilled regulars who, through long practice in broken-field running, have become adept in the business of seat-snatching.
That Automat diners return daily to their trials is not due to love of punishment but to the fact that food here is hard to beat. The hot beef or chicken pies, baked in individual deep dishes and covered with brown and flaky crusts, are among the culinary wonders of New York—produced, as they are, in perfect and uniform thousands! And the piping-hot corned beef hash, made of honest lean beef and never too sharply flavored, is as good as any man’s mother can cook.
Clam chowder, not Boston-, not New York-style, but with a flavor all its own, and English beef soup, are both so popular as to keep trade rivals sniffing around. Little pots of slow-baked beans, garnished with strips of crisp pork, rival Boston’s and the door of their cell rattles like a machine gun all day long.
Thousands breakfast on the beloved cinnamon bun, a modestly named confection stuffed with raisins and covered with treacle. This, with a cup of excellent, rich-creamed coffee, inspires many a wan New Yorker to start the day with a glow. Bread, superior corn bread, bran muffins, pies, and pastries sit in the noble company of the cinnamon bun.
At the steam table the capricious may select a complete dinner, and though portions are not large, the food is better than that obtained at many cafeterias. But the nickel-in-the-slot method is still the more popular.
Quality never varies. This accounts for the loyalty of the regulars. Such achievement in mass-production cookery is credited in part to organization, in part to a staff of the most highly paid chefs in the business. And food buying is so closely gauged that there are no left-overs at the end of the day, which is 2 a.m.
New York eats in the Automat; it does not, however, smoke or converse there. Smoking, in fact, is strictly forbidden by sign and spoken warnings. But no one minds. The Automat will flourish so long as the average New Yorker remains what he is, a person who is everlastingly fond of dropping coins into slot machines, who loves good coffee, and who knows his cinnamon buns.
New York Soda-Luncheonette Slang and Jargon
Drugstore Lunch
EDWARD O’BRIEN
T ime was when the drug store dispensed medicines. But now, as the candid rag says with but slight exaggeration, it sells everything from pins to automobiles. Not the least of the additions to the drug store is the soda-fountain luncheonette, where anything from a “C.O. cocktail” (castor oil in soda) to “Jack Benny in the red” (strawberry Jell-O) may be had.
The stool and counter has a special attraction for the woman shopper, the office worker, and the show girl. And it has certain advantages. The drug store carries a connotation of cleanliness. One juggles no tray while stalking a seat in the noonday jam. The food, though
Similar Books
