Golden era restaurants & cuisine of the era

[Bamaboots]

Yeah...chopped steak is all over the south. I ordered it a few months ago at a steakhouse in charleston WV. One I find delicious is osso Buko. I had an old Italian friend tell me it used to be poor peoples food. It was the throw away. Now it is expensive but VERY good.

Absolutely, except down here look for "hamburger steak" as opposed to chopped steak. Most of your servers would give you the "what the hell" look. Osso buco, traditionally veal shank and sometimes beef shank is another peasant meal gone high end, same as ox tail, cheap cuts of meat with long cooking times that most of us poor people knew of long ago.

 

[Guttersnipe]

That's the trend in "foodie" culture -- to take working-class food and turn it into some kind of mutated, overpriced boutique item. But it's been going on like that since long before the foodies came along -- I chuckle every time I hear some chump tourist raving about their fifty-dollar artisanally-caught lobster dinner, since I had to eat so much of the stuff as a kid that I can't stomach it anymore.

I think the same thing every time I see gnocchi on the menu at a fancy Italian restaurant. That's pure pure peasant food, but it sure is good!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I want to open a restaurant that serves nothing but eighteen different variations on hamburger meat and elbow macaroni in watery tomato sauce. I'll call it "s l u m" -- note the pretentious all-lower case usage -- I'll hire a corps of skinny twenty-five-year old boys with pencil beards to wait table, and dinners will start at $30. I'll make a fortune.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

My family is from Virginia and we called it hamburger steak too. I'll never forget the morning I sat down at the table for breakfast and my mom put a plate of pig's brains and scrambled eggs in front of my dad. I immediately got up from the table and refused to eat breakfast. I seriously thought I was going to throw up. Just thinking about it some 40 years later still makes me a bit queasy. And the man used to turn his nose up when I'd put ketchup on scrambled eggs. The nerve!

 

[lolly_loisides]

^^^^^^^^^
Pigs thinkers are delicious

 

[Shangas]

I think the same thing every time I see gnocchi on the menu at a fancy Italian restaurant. That's pure pure peasant food, but it sure is good!

Don't get me started on gourmet fish and chips...

 

[Fading Fast]

Gallagher's - know it well, as you said, not cheap, but very old school. I'm glad they still have chop steak on the menu, but I usually look for it in less-upscale establishments.

"Hamburger Steak," I had one grandparent who, if memory serves, called what I knew as chop steak that. He served in the army in WWI and, again from an old memory, I think trained in the South before shipping out - I wonder if he learned to call it that then.

As to upscale / downscale food nonsense - chicken and lobster have cycled in and out of popularity with the wealthy set based on whether or not they were expensive or not. What seems different now is - as Lizzie notes - the foodies taking "downscale" foods and imbuing them with some "street creed" or other such nonsense (usually by over thinking and over preparing the dishes).

I like chicken, liked it as a kid (it was less expensive and made it to our table a lot), like it now and hope it doesn't get taken up by the foodie culture so that I can continue to enjoy it without it being and "it" food for awhile.

 

[tonyb]

I don't like chitlins. Just thought that needed to be said.

You're welcome to my portion, if you wish. Slip it under the table when the grownups aren't looking. The dog will appreciate it.

 

[tonyb]

My experience has it that the chewier cuts of meat are the more flavorful, generally, but you gotta cook 'em a long time. Hence barbecue and stews and such.

Tripe? Prepared well (menudo, anyone?) can be quite tasty.

I make ham hocks and beans every now and then. Excellent, if I do say so myself.

My dear old mother, a child of the Depression, loves pickled pig's feet. And head cheese. A fellow in Seattle by the name of Davis made the stuff and sold it out of his house on Rainier Avenue. Mom was a regular customer. I believe old Mr. Davis has gone to the big kitchen in the sky. Now where the hell are we to find a decent head cheese?

 

[LizzieMaine]

The classic daytime radio comedy "Vic and Sade" often discussed a dish called "beef p u n k les," which were described as an extremely tough form of meat which had to be slowly cooked for several hours before it became edible. While this specific dish was a figment of the author's creative imagination, it's a pretty honest reflection of common working-class food of the Era.

"Canned beef p u n k l les" were considered to be an abomination. They had to be fresh and they had to be cooked for real to be correct.

 

[pawineguy]

That's the trend in "foodie" culture -- to take working-class food and turn it into some kind of mutated, overpriced boutique item. But it's been going on like that since long before the foodies came along -- I chuckle every time I hear some chump tourist raving about their fifty-dollar artisanally-caught lobster dinner, since I had to eat so much of the stuff as a kid that I can't stomach it anymore.

We have an African American friend, who was raised poor in Harlem and then was adopted by a very famous Hollywood couple in his late teens, so he has spanned both worlds. At a dinner out recently, he turned to my 14 year old son and said "it's funny how Kale and other greens went from poor black food to rich white people food."

 

[tonyb]

Whatever else might be factually said about my Southern dad (stepdad, technically), it ought be observed that he is one helluva good cook. He cooked in the service, aboard merchant ships, and in restaurants.

It wasn't until I was grown that I got a clearer sense of just how poor we were during my childhood. Part of that is surely due to the food we had on a daily basis. There was always very good food, and plenty of it.

The old guy took real pleasure in feeding people -- anybody, really. He didn't even have to like a person -- indeed, he may have preferred to see that person leave his company, but not with an empty stomach.

He's on his last legs now. The doctors say a month, probably, maybe two.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Don't get me started on gourmet fish and chips...

I've seen featured on TV the restaurant that serves "gourmet" peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. People line up out the door to pay $12 for a pb&j.

 

[HudsonHawk]

We have an African American friend, who was raised poor in Harlem and then was adopted by a very famous Hollywood couple in his late teens, so he has spanned both worlds. At a dinner out recently, he turned to my 14 year old son and said "it's funny how Kale and other greens went from poor black food to rich white people food."

Rich white people call it "kale". The rest of the world just call them "collard greens".

 

[pawineguy]

Rich white people call it "kale". The rest of the world just call them "collard greens".

Haha, but no, two distinctly different greens. They don't even look remotely alike.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Haha, but no, two distinctly different greens. They don't even look remotely alike.

They are the same thing. If the leafs are curly, it's kale, if they're flat, they're collards. But they are the same plant.

 

[Bamaboots]

I don't like chitlins. Just thought that needed to be said.

I like chitlins cooked into "cracklins" and mixed with my cornbread batter.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've seen featured on TV the restaurant that serves "gourmet" peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. People line up out the door to pay $12 for a pb&j.

We have a place across the street here that sells $12 toasted cheese sandwiches. Same deal.

 

[2jakes]

The classic daytime radio comedy "Vic and Sade" often discussed a dish called "beef p u n k les," which were described as an extremely tough form of meat which had to be slowly cooked for several hours before it became edible. While this specific dish was a figment of the author's creative imagination, it's a pretty honest reflection of common working-class food of the Era.

"Canned beef p u n k l les" were considered to be an abomination. They had to be fresh and they had to be cooked for real to be correct.

​

​and the description of the toughness of the contents is very similar to a dish known as “menudo”.

If one is an afficionado of “menudo”...

To taste “canned menudo” would most certainly fall under the category of uke:

 

[HudsonHawk]

I like chitlins cooked into "cracklins" and mixed with my cornbread batter.

Where I'm from, "cracklins" are the skin, essentially Cajun pork rinds.