Barbershops hold food secrets
By Jane and Michael Stern
Washington Post
Do you want to learn the unvarnished truth about American food? Get a haircut.
Whether you are trying to ferret out a cafe that serves haystack hash browns in the Nebraska Midlands or want to debate saltines vs. white bread as the proper companion for Texas Hill Country barbecue, ease into a barber's chair, bring up the subject of eating and watch what happens.
It was in a barbershop in eastern North Carolina that a customer put down his Cabela's catalog to inform us about the annual herring run. He provided a short history of the old-time Roanoke River herring shacks and said we should be prepared to order our fish sunny-side up (fried only briefly) or cremated (well done). In Clarksdale, Miss., while stropping her razor, a barber told us where to get the best cream pies in the Mississippi Delta. As Michael got his nape shaved in northern Wisconsin, we were surrounded by three barbers who explained that in that part of the world, "hot dish" is no mere casserole; it is a way of life.
American food at its best is folk art, its traditions the underpinnings of people's lives. To know what it's all about, disregard cutting-edge food and celebrity chefs; ignore the nagging admonitions of the food police. Instead, sit at a bare Formica table in the Delgado family's Pico de Gallo in South Tucson and have a talk about tortilla-making. Eat soul food elbow-to-elbow with regulars at the counter of Washington's Florida Avenue Grill, or join the morning crowd at the communal breakfast table at Mamie's Kitchen Biscuits in Conyers, Ga.
While nothing is more illuminating than a shared meal and conversation in the field, bibliographical resources are invaluable keys to opening the door on America's culinary personality. But some of the most telling reading — about food as well as life in general — is not bound or formally published. It is found on the bulletin board in a restaurant's vestibule or near the cash register. Here are tacked-up posters for harvest festivals, street fairs and meat processors ("Come in with kill; go home with sausage"). A few years ago in southern Vermont, we saw a notice posted by a citizen who claimed a particular patch of meadow on the outskirts of town as his for picking fiddlehead ferns in the spring. We once came upon a poster in South Carolina inviting one and all to an "Anti-Abortion and Fish Fry Rally (All You Can Eat)."
As to more official sources of insight into our American food culture, we have a 5-foot shelf of masterpieces about specific places. These are the best of the best, providing a deep and true picture of local foodways:
Of course, for the big picture that entwines food with love and travel and sensuality in general, no one has matched the clarion voice of M.F.K. Fisher ("The Gastronomical Me" is our favorite) or the joie de vivre of A.J. Liebling ("Between Meals"). And although Seymour Britchky was quite simply the greatest restaurant reviewer ever, his real genius was for revealing everything about the people, the setting and the cultural implications of a dining experience. His newsletter, "The Restaurant Reporter," and his series of books, "The Restaurants of New York," transcend food to become elegant anthropology.
If you want a food fix on film, look at the vintage diner scenes in Preston Sturges' 1941 movie "Sullivan's Travels," the old night-owl counter in 1940's "They Drive By Night" and the breakfast-table abuse in 1931's "The Public Enemy," when James Cagney uses his girlfriend's face as a juice squeezer.
Some of the most affecting on-screen meals are those that re-create a bygone world — and it doesn't even have to be very bygone. In "The Big Chill," the '60s classmates reminisce about a mere decade in the past. They rekindle the good vibes of their salad days by making a meal together — returning them to the togetherness of communal dreams.
And for our money, no movie has more entertaining eating scenes than "The Blues Brothers" — watch Jake and Elwood embarrassing everyone with their delectably uncouth antics at the swanky "Chez Paul," or provoking the soul-food waitress played by Aretha Franklin into bursting forth with a heart-stopping rendition of "(You Better) Think." The latter scene was filmed at the legendary Nate's Deli on Maxwell Street in Chicago. Nate's was razed to become a parking lot, but thanks to "The Blues Brothers," its Southside, Jewish, soul-food charm lives on.
Jane and Michael Stern write a monthly column for Gourmet magazine. Their most recent book is "Two for the Road: Our Love Affair With American Food" (Houghton Mifflin).
