There was a time before this madness, before 4am bedtimes and 8am starts; before I came to rely on the powernaps that I now apparently take on trains on the way to school or in a hairdresser’s chair, grabbing at any wisps of sleep as they come to me. Yep, there was a time – a pretty long time, at that – before I got to the point of sleeplessness and work intensity I’m at now. And in that time I went on a little journey.
I went with a friend, Liblah, on a wee jaunt to parts of the American mid-west in search of music, ice cream sundaes and key lime pie. We didn’t even know we were looking for the last two until we found ourselves reading about traditional ice cream parlours and custard dens in an in-flight magazine on the way to St Louis.
St Louis, where men open doors for you and help you lift your bags. St Louis, where all the men dress like golfers. St Louis…St Lewis.
Home to the best root beer I’ve tasted in the US – and I’ve tasted a few. It’s called Fitz’s and it’s brewed right in town. Here it is, about to be turned into a root beer float at Blueberry Hill where the octogenarian Chuck Berry still plays a monthly gig. We missed him by a few days but our waiter pointed out the table where he normally sits. He stopped divulging info when Liblah asked for the rock n’ roll legend’s address. So she had to lie on his star on the St Louis Walk of Fame instead.
Don’t you just love the Fitz’s label? Ok, so you probably can’t see it that well. We got a little obsessed with that kind of thing, the old Americana feel to products, even brand new ones. Take a look at these Boylan’s bottles on display in a St Louis corner store. The root beer ain’t bad, the creme soda is better and though I’ve never tried it a friend swears by their birch beer. I just like the way they look, mostly.
From town we took a taxi over to Crown Candy Kitchen, a soda fountain and ice-cream parlour that has been in the same family for nearly 100 years. On our way we passed the many ghosts of St Louis’ past – empty warehouses and factories, vestiges of its once-booming shoe manufacturing industry. The town has lost 50 per cent of its population since the 1950s and there are attempts to rejuvenate its downtown center through a mass program of loft conversions. When we were there, most seemed empty.
And where Crown Candy sits is a place people kept telling us to get out of. A woman at a gas station offered us a lift because it was a Bad Neighborhood. We turned her down because she was a Bad Drunk. So in the middle of a nowhere, semi-developed suburban lot was this beautiful little slice of history. The malted shakes in here are legendary and come served with a spoon. We made the mistake of getting both shakes and sundaes — and entered a world of pain. There’s a reason why these “drinks” have inspired an annual competitive eating competition.
So it began in St Louis and from there came the steady documentation of a great many number of our meals along the way. America sure has some weird stuff. This is what we found at the Dixie road stop on the way to Chicago.
Good even in cases of nuclear holocaust, I’d imagine. But this stuff below? Surprisingly delicious AND convenient, two guiding principles when diving into America’s culinary treasures.
The food we came across in our transits was often more fun than what we sought out with intent. To wit, let me introduce you to the gopher. We got this box of treats at Atlanta airport in Georgia, from a place called the Savannah candy store. This was on our way down to New Orleans and was our first encounter with southern sweeties. Gophers (seems only Georgians call them that) are the ones on the left — blobs of caramel covered in walnuts then topped with chocolate. They are pretty great but a bit of a mess to eat. I don’t think anyone else got as excited about them as we did.
A “what the?” moment: Voodoo chips. Louisiana.
In Chicago we experienced the best, the worst and the most mediocre of gastronomic pleasures. Smack bang in the middle of that spectrum, for just $6.50 you too could start your day with this spread of pancakes, peach compote, coffee and spanish omelet. It was at this point that we stopped ordering separate meals. Portion control is on a whole different scale in the States.
We’d come to Chicago to go to two music festivals. At one of them, Pitchfork, we bought ice cream from a stall and were told about a diner in Boystown that made the best peanut butter and cookie dough shakes in the world. We investigated, we drank. We swooned.
I can report without hesitation that this was singularly the best milkshake I’ve ever had. Shockingly, it was vegan. In fact it’s made at a place called the Chicago Diner where the menu is entirely vegetarian. A win for socially responsible eating, a triumph for the tastebuds! The pic is a bit rubbish, we were sitting right under a neon light.
But there was only one foodie experience that was a must-do on the list, one we had to endure but knew we wouldn’t enjoy. Pizza pie. Breathtakingly awful. We ordered a small and could only manage a piece each. Behold.
So that takes me to New Orleans but I feel like NOLA needs a post all of its own, it’s such a special place. That will come in time. For now, it’s sweet sweet sleep. Night.
A Black Bird Cage 