Too Much (Is Just Right)
Ruth Reichl recently reposted an article she’d written many years ago (“Is Food Political?”). In it, almost as an aside, she said:
Consider, for instance, the recent elevation of an entirely new category of food: Chinese-American, Italian-American, Mexican-American, etc. Chefs are creating fancied-up or playful takes on orange chicken, spaghetti and meatballs, and hard-shell tacos. Once considered bastardized versions of classic cuisines, they have now become both beloved and respectable.
It reminded me that, once, long ago, I had started work on a book about those kinds of dishes—American inventions that we tend to think of as “ethnic,” but aren’t. Chili con Carne and Corned Beef and Cabbage, you know? Like many such projects, nothing came of it.
Thinking about it made me search through the dustier, most cob-webbed, corners of my hard drive. I found the book-in-not-so-much-progress. What’s more, it included a section that, at first, didn’t quite seem to fit the book’s theme. However, one of the characteristics that identify those cross-bred creations as “American” is the addition of more-than-a-soupçon of a uniquely American ingredient—excess. We always add more. In that spirit, the chapter, below, might have fit in after all.
Sadly, since it was written, some of the places it mentions no longer exist—except in our dreams.
A Hot Fudge Sundae with a Madeleine
Back in the late fifties and early sixties, a local ice cream emporium (The Marathon, in Peekskill, NY) offered something called “The Atomic Bomb”—thirty-or-so scoops of ice cream in a huge bowl, with several different toppings. It was the sort of thing only adolescent appetites could crave, consequently, it was also something of a culinary challenge.
A gastronomic Everest, if you will.
Not many of us had ever eaten one—I know I never did—nor even knew of anyone who had (except, perhaps, as part of a communal effort for a special event, like a birthday party). Nearly forty [now more than sixty] years have passed, but the image of that monument to mutually-assured-dyspepsia still tempts and intrigues me.
Not that I would—or could—eat one of those things today, but just thinking about it stirs something in me. Maybe not nostalgia—can we feel nostalgia for something we have never actually experienced? Perhaps it's just a longing for a missed opportunity. How casually that rolls off the tongue—implying a kind of adult sophistication that can easily banish our childhood dreams.
Is anything more poignant than a missed opportunity? Perhaps we can only feel nostalgia for the perfect things we remember that never were.
Many people have told me, in appropriately reverent tones, that Jahn’s (a small chain of ice cream parlors in Brooklyn, the Bronx, as well as Levittown on Long Island) once offered a fantastic phenomenon called “The Kitchen Sink,” a stainless steel bowl, two-feet in diameter, filled with the stuff of dreams and dyspepsia. Rows of these basins lined the wall, high on a shelf, where they served as constant reminder of glorious possibility. Rumor had it that, if you ate an entire kitchen sink—yourself, in one sitting—you got it free. Jahn’s also dished out free sundaes on your birthday (if you showed them your birth certificate). The concept of vast quantities of delectably gooey ice cream, at absolutely no cost, is close to a youth’s idea of heaven.
Who am I kidding? If we substitute calories and cholesterol for money in the cost, wouldn’t it still represent heaven to us?
Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor—in Dania Beach, Florida—also serves a kitchen sink, but unlike the one at Jahn’s, it is served in a sink. Actually, it arrives at the table in a stainless steel pan that is shaped like a sink, atop a pedestal made of the familiar S-trap drainpipe. If that isn’t excessive enough for your tastes, or you’re afraid that no one will notice your extravagance, it arrives topped with two flaming sparklers, a couple of tiny American flags, and the sound of fire-truck sirens. Jaxson’s has an even larger sundae on the menu: “The Punchbowl.” It’s 8-10 pounds of assorted ice cream flavors, a couple of quarts of toppings, plus the obligatory flaming sparklers and sirens.
Similar icons of luscious—and ludicrous—largess have existed in many places... and still lurk in the memories of many of us who wouldn’t even think of consuming such things today.
Except, of course, in our “sweet little imaginations.”
In Pittsburgh, in the nineteen-fifties, a small local ice cream parlor served their “Chop Suey Sundae”—five different scoops of ice cream with five different toppings. Of course, it was finished—in classic Chinese fashion—with whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry. The price of such bliss? Fifty cents.
Cleveland, Ohio’s Honey Hut, also back in the fifties, served their big sundae, “The Destroyer,” made with ten flavors of their home-made ice cream, in a plastic pail. The Honey Hut still makes them, but they're now served in something that looks like a loaf pan.
In Gowanda, NY, Farner and Parker’s used to slop their hogs with their “Pig’s Dinner.” Food safety? Never heard of it. The “Pig’s Dinner” was served in a wooden trough. There were no free sundaes for those who could eat the whole thing, but they did supply a pin that bragged: “I was a PIG at Farner and Parker’s.”
Another “Pigs Dinner” was on the menu at the Greenwood Dairy in Langhorn, PA. A mere twelve scoops with bananas and the usual topping—but if you finished it, they'd give you another for free.
The Newport Creamery, in Rhode Island, featured a thick, quart-sized milkshake called “The Awful Awful.” If you drank three at one time, they poured out another.
Happy Joe’s Pizza and Ice Cream Parlours, a chain in North Dakota and Minnesota, tempted the unwary with their “Gutbuster”—A foot-high goblet containing two scoops each of a dozen different flavors of ice cream, complete with the usual whipped cream and cherries. If someone was ever foolish enough to eat one of them, in one sitting, another “Gutbuster” was delivered to the table.
Pedaco’s in Jackson Heights, NY, was more realistic. If you couldn’t finish their “Idiot's Delight” in one sitting, they would store it for you, in their freezer, until your next visit.
Farrells, in Oregon and Hawaii, had a huge sundae that came to the table slung between two poles. Four waiters ran through the dining room carrying the thing, while drums and cymbals (or beaten bowls and blowing horns) heralded their approach. In Portland, OR, the sundae was called “The Portland Zoo.” Little plastic elephants and giraffes cavorted around the mountain of ice cream in the huge silver bowl, while plastic monkeys swung over the edge by their tails.
In Vancouver, BC, Peters Ice Cream (advertised with the ironic slogan “The health food of a nation”), offered the “Centennial Sundae.” It arrived at the table on a huge stainless platter-like bowl atop a pedestal. It consisted of a large scoop of ice cream for each of the thirteen provinces, each a different flavor. It was topped only with whipped cream, cherries, and little flags for each of the provinces. For those who felt the dish was, in some way, lacking—a small carousel accompanied the patriotic dish. It carried a selection of toppings including—but not limited to—caramel, chocolate fudge, pineapple, and strawberry.
The Chart Room, a now departed Connecticut parlor, used to make “The Party Bowl” for special occasions. It was fifteen scoops of ice cream topped with hot fudge, pineapple and strawberry toppings, and a slathering of marshmallow creme.
In Daniel Pinkwater’s book (Fat Men From Space), aliens search the universe seeking the ultimate in junk food. They take over an establishment whose piece de resistance, is a massive ice cream sundae, served in a backpack, atop a bed of fried eggplant.
I only met Pinkwater once—when he was a guest speaker at The Culinary Institute of America (a couple of miles from his home, in Hyde Park). He might well be the quintessential American food writer.
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