tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post7108924435368452038..comments2024-01-22T18:22:29.391-08:00Comments on hedera's corner: Road Foodhederahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-65622273982983564082008-08-28T14:28:00.000-07:002008-08-28T14:28:00.000-07:00Finding the exceptions is fun, and it's part of wh...Finding the exceptions is fun, and it's part of what we enjoy while traveling. We stopped for lunch one day in Maine, on the way to Blue Hill, in a little breakfast-and-lunch joint downtown in a medium sized city whose name I forget; and we had a wonderful homemade soup. <BR/><BR/>We choose to find the local one-of-a-kind places and see what they can do, and I'd say we're pleasantly surprised more often than not. Paris, Idaho was the exception that proves the rule.<BR/><BR/>The lunch place in Paris also had an amusing sight that I left out of the main post: while we were there a bunch of local boys came in, all tricked out in Stetson hats and spurs, and sat down for a round of soda pop. This being Mormon country, there was of course no Coca Cola - but they all scarfed down the Mountain Dew! So much for avoiding caffeine...hederahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-71315673181585325762008-08-27T08:02:00.000-07:002008-08-27T08:02:00.000-07:00It's a truism that once you get out of urban c...It's a truism that once you get out of urban centers, the best meals are likely to be breakfast, lunch, and dinner--in that order. Rural folks are least likely to expect to go out in the evening and spend money on better fixin's. But breakfast there is an important meal, either because you have to be ready to do a day's work, or because it's a truly social occasion in which people can get together. People tend to think up other excuses for not indulging in what they can't afford, so gourmet fare is treated as if it were an effete indulgence, instead of one of life's delights. "Real men don't eat quiche" captures this spirit accurately. <BR/><BR/>Road food--most of it--is now controlled by franchise corporations, which market international brands. You can get the same meals in almost any small town in America, because the model is uniform across the geographical spectrum. Small coffee-shops, lunch-counters, and swinging door taverns still survive, and thrive, in small towns, but they lack imagination. You can get a good breakfast, or a good lunch there, but don't expect fresh, or piquant, or healthy.<BR/><BR/>Those of us who live in highly sophisticated urban or suburban centers such as the Bay Area, have to be willing to settle for less when we stray from our watering holes. When I'm driving, I know that an egg and cheese and bacon McMuffin, with a cup of bitter black coffee, is probably the best I'm going to find, usually. For lunch, a BLT and a Bud may be the best choice. For dinners, it's a wasteland. Upscale tourist venues charge way too much and have some peculiar notions of "fine food," as your cayenne pepper episode illustrates. <BR/><BR/>If you want great food, go to where the food is the center attraction (like New Orleans, for instance). Hoping for gourmet meals in the Rockies is just plain wishful thinking. Lots of places have their own "specialties." There's a neat little B & B on an island between Minneapolis and St. Paul which serves the best Canadian bacon I've ever had, unlike any I've ever seen or tasted: Almost no fat, and as tender as stew-meat. The fishing lodge at Steamboat Springs on the Umpqua River in Oregon makes a "coffee-can" homemade 17 grain bread that is flat out world class, and they made it up themselves. Finding these exceptions is fun.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com