Friday, January 02, 2004

The Local Food Scene

I walked out of the big shiny new national chain hardware store a few weeks ago, and there, across the parking lot, glowing in the night like a neon oasis, was the new national chain donut shop. A light breeze swept the yeasty and sugary and oily aroma my way; I felt myself suddenly at substantial risk of turning into Mr. Homer Simpson.  “H’ohhhh, donuts.” But I had a wagon-load of crown molding, and the little lady was waiting for me back at the homestead, so I slowly wiped my shirt sleeve across the moist corner of my mouth, and pulled on my wide-brim hat, and rode off. But I knew deep down that someday those donuts and I would meet again.

In the last year, that section of Main Street has turned into an upscale Franchise Row, with lovely new restaurants, elaborately appointed in designer colors, and serving a range of foods that some of our more old-fashioned local establishments can’t match. For me, though, a bit of the bloom has already rubbed off the Franchise rose. Not long ago, I was standing in a posh soup and sandwich place waiting for my order when one of the employees came out of the back room carrying a steaming plastic bag of soup. He picked up a fancy chef’s knife, sliced off a corner of the bag, and poured the contents into a warming tray. I started to imagine that the soup had been assembled and cooked and hermetically sealed in a spotless factory kitchen somewhere in the Garden State of New Jersey.  Hey, why make soup when you can pull big frozen bags of it off the back of a delivery truck?

Of course many home-grown restaurants are pretty unremarkable. A small medical emergency brought me and my daughter to the doctor’s office the other day, and by the time she was all patched up we were both ready for lunch. We hustled down the block to the nearest restaurant, which turned out to be a smoke-filled joint with a down-home name and a menu that could have been printed 25 years ago, for all the food innovations that were reflected there.  The server was friendly and efficient, the spoons were not greasy, but we needed the little bowl of complimentar Lipitor tablets to counteract the cholesterol that glistened on the plates before us.

When I first met my spouse, she made soups for a living to pay her way through college. She was at the restaurant job by 6:00 a.m., chopping and sauteeing and simmering the ingredients that made up the broths and roux for two or three big pots of fresh soup each day. The folks at the restaurant even worked up their own croutons, hearty cubes of bread seasoned with garlic and paprika and butter.  It’s easy to be nostalgic for that kind of local establishment, but the owners worked long hours for years and finally gave up the place. When I visit the old college town I still run into people who, like me, fondly remember their White Gazpacho soup.  And when some friends and I saved up for a special night out last month, we chose a locally-owned establishment called Ciao’s spelled the Italian way, in downtown South Bend.  Everything at the beautiful restaurant was delicious, and I’ve long been a fan of the pastries there, but the paté was like the Braunschweiger from my childhood had been touched by the finger of God. When it comes to the Darwinian struggle between restaurants, Ciao’s is one place I want to survive.

After all, when it comes to restaurants, you and I are at the top of the food chain.  We get to decide what nourishment to take into our bodies.  We get to say which of the hard-working food entrepreneurs stand and which of them fall.  If they don’t serve what we want, we can buy fresh ingredients and spices and cook for friends and family at home.

At least it should be that way.  Somehow, though, when I look at those smokey local joints and the posh facades of Franchise Row, I wonder if the tables haven’t been turned by our own passivity.  I fear that we have become trivial, like a glazed donut, floating along in the hot grease, just enough dough to hold the pockets of air together and catch the hot oil and support the sugary glaze.  When we live like consumers, we are like those donuts ourselves, set out in tidy rows, insubstantial, and ready to be consumed.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on January 02, 2004
Commerce • Food • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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