“Back then, to review these unheralded mom-and-pop cafés was strange. Foodies (a term that had yet to be popularized) were interested only in eating at gourmet bastions in big cities or abroad. These Continental restaurants were expensive; they served French or northern Italian food and had waiters wielding big pepper mills.”
– “Roadfood” author Jane Stern, from an interview in The Paris Review
In “The United States of Arugula,” Jane and Michael Stern merit only a footnote on page 265. Author David Camp chooses to quote James Beard biographer Robert Clark, who contends that the Sterns in their coast-to-coast guides to highway diners, barbecue joints and much more, “fawned with Warholesque camp enthusiasm over dishes that members of the food establishment considered beyond the pale, lavishing on unpretentious and unassuming juke joints the same fevered attentions that gourmets once reserved for Le Pavillon.”
We have more than a dozen Sterns books, including many editions of “Roadfood” because you never know what one will include that another does not, on our bookshelves. We are fans of the places they write about. Yes, we like Mosca’s (a favorite of the Sterns, and Calvin Trillin as well) outside of New Orleans because it is unpretentious and unassuming, but also because the food is spectacular. Yet we also like Commander’s Palace, which is, well, assuming. And more expensive. With food that is also spectacular. Just different.
That’s one thing that comes to mind when I began thinking about The Session #146: “Where do you find value?”
The other is the promotion designed to wed Miller High Life and dive bars. In that story, I learned that it is possible to buy a case of Miller High Life for about $18. That’s quite a bit cheaper than NA beer, or than a single bottle of some saisons in the big bottle cooler at my local beer store. I’m wondering if drinking Miller High Life in a dive bar adds value to the dive bar experience. Or if the dive bar setting adds value to Miller High Life.
