Friday, February 15, 2019

Why are food memories so strong?


Do you ever remember a specific food and the very first time you tried it? I have a top ten list that comes to mind (listed in the order I remembered them), although if I tried hard I’m sure I could come up with more.



  1. Ice Cream Sundae

Not just any ice cream sundae: THE ice cream sundae. On a weekend shopping trip to the big city (Bay City, MI), one of the stops was the downtown Sears store, which had a small coffee shop, on the second floor as I remember. It was here as a young boy that I was introduced to perfection. It is also where I was introduced to butterscotch, which to this day is my favorite flavor in the whole wide world. Sadly the store closed down just a few years ago.

The downtown Sears store circa late 50s, early 60s.

Jan and Bob Shea in the Sears coffee shop in ’68. A workplace romance reminiscent of Toni and me. (See article)

  1. Lobster


I was 12 when my mother took me visit my cousin Gerhard in DC (actually he lived in Alexandria, VA, but it will always be known as the Washington trip). One evening we went to a restaurant and since the whole trip was an adventure, I was gonna be brave and try the lobster. I never looked back. Dipping that sweet white meat into the salty melted butter is still a taste I can bring to mind with no effort at all.

A great trip I will always remember.


My cousin Gerhard, a most excellent host.



  1. Steak (#1)


 At the age of 8, my mom took me to visit friends and relatives in California, but if we’re being honest here, we were there to visit Disneyland. While we were there, we visited Uncle Philip and Aunt Barbara. We were treated to the most perfectly char grilled steak I have ever eaten. I also remember a walk along the beach, but mostly steak.

Uncle Philip. I met him about 40 years before this picture; he would have been almost 10 years younger than I am now…And I learned things about him from his obituary that I didn't know before. Quite a fellow.

Life goals of an 8 year old: Met.

The beach in Torrance, CA. The endless Pacific Ocean before me, I still think I might have chosen the steak.

Our hosts in Torrance for the extent of our stay, Wendel and Franziska Mergel about 1980; one of the most gracious couples I have ever known. Even more remarkable because of their story, which in many ways paralleled that of my own family.
 While visiting the out west, I—at the ripe old age of 8—fell head over heels in love with a girl 2 years younger than me: Wendel and Franzi’s granddaughter, Brigitte. In looking her up 50 years later, I have found that she has led an extraordinarily successful life along with her husband (below are links to her B&B, her LinkedIn page of accomplishments, and a newspaper article about her husband), and I wish her all the best. It is she who wrote the short biography of her grandparents.




Clark Hoss. I never met the man. He seems like a stand up guy. He better take good care of my girlfriend…



  1. Pizza (#1)


 Pizza was the new kid in town when I was growing up; not many places offered it. And in a small town like Cass City, it was remarkable there was even one. Sherman’s Restaurant at the eastern edge of town just before you got to the Elkland Cemetery (the site of the restaurant is now a funeral home). It was the only pizza I knew besides Chef Boy-Ar-Dee until junior high/high school when Beagios Restaurant and the Charmont bowling alley started serving it.

Erika Sherman. There’s a weird kind of irony that her funeral was held on the very site where she spent so many years of her life.

I loved this stuff. But beating the dough by hand about wore my mom out. Seems like once I was old enough to take over that duty we had it less often.

  1. Beer


 Closely associated with the pizza is the only beverage that should ever be paired with it. Thanks to my European upbringing, alcohol was not denied to the only minor in the house, merely limited. I had wine with Sunday dinner, brandy on special occasions, and beer with my pizza. (We won’t discuss how much beer I drank at the several hundred family weddings I attended...) Mom was the only one in the family with a taste for beer (and we called ourselves “Germans”...Hah!), and her choice was Stroh’s, the closest thing to German beer we could get. I can still taste it.

Not me drinking not beer.

  1. Pizza (#2) - College means many things to many people. For me it was the discovery of Dominos Pizza. Much is made of how Tom Monahan revolutionized the industry, but I’m here to tell you he couldn’t have done it without me (it wasn’t the Noid as many believe). A small pepperoni and 4 Domino cups of Pepsi got me through many an all-nighter. And just through life in general...


Domino’s trying to keep up with all my orders.


Possibly one of the most anNOIDing product mascots ever.
And then of course the famous 30 minutes or less guarantee:




  1. Arby’s


On another excursion to Bay City took us to K-Mart way on the west side of town. For a long time, Mr. Hot Dog was the only eatery mildly interesting to my young boy’s mind (if only because Mr. Hot Dog on TV’s Hoss and Stuff—with Daddy Cool—was also the weatherman on Channel 5, Jim Peyton, who drew cartoons while he did the weather). Then one day there was an Arby’s. A regular Arby’s cost 69 cents (twice a McDonald’s burger) and I could easily pack away 2 of them. With their special sauces and Jomocha shakes...mmmm.

Not the one we went to but, like McDonalds, they all looked alike.


Try as I might, I could not find any pictures of the original restaurant with it’s hysterical Mr. Hot Dog sign. Here’s what it looks like now.


Jim Peyton in serious mode:


Hoss, “Mr. Hot Dog” himself, and Daddy Cool, whose nose was a hot dog. But no Stuff.


Here’s Stuff:




  1. Steak (#2) - Every Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, sometimes Easter, and sometimes just because, the family would pack up and go to Frankenmuth to the Bavarian Inn for a taste of back home. So while the rest of the family enjoyed their particular German favorites, I invariably had the same thing: a bowl of their chicken soup followed by a nice juicy steak. While it wasn’t as good as Uncle Philip’s, it was as close as it could get. My desert choice? Duh, a butterscotch sundae. The steak and ice cream always had little plastic animals stuck in them which I dutifully collected, and the wine was served in super cool upside down decanters.


The “World Famous” Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth with the Glockenspiel in the middle. My grandfather got a lot of mileage out of explaining to people that if the town was really Bavarian, it would have been named, “Bayernmuth”. So now you know.

Some of the little plastic doohickeys they put on the food.



Decanter for serious wine connoisseurs only. Or serious wine drinkers.

  1. Gyros and Greek Salad


 College. I was in a cosmopolitan town now, baby, and needed to try all those things that a small town in the Thumb of Michigan couldn’t offer. My cultural exploration landed me at the Parthenon Restaurant on the corner of Main and Liberty, the pinnacle of civilization. Well at least to an 18 year old rube like me. Was it the lamb, the pita, the tzatziki? It was all of it.

John and Steve Gavas, owners of the Parthenon.



  1. French Dip/Nachos Supreme (tie)


 As my bar hopping abilities increased, my friends and I happened upon Herc’s Beef and Spirits, where we did our best to ingratiate ourselves with the owner, the bartenders, and the waitresses. I have nothing but fond memories of the place and was sad to hear it closed. (“Luckily” I discovered Banfields...) Herc’s had a great menu (and Centipede and Frogger video games, too), but my standout memories are of the Dip and the Nachos. Generous portions of delicious, real food.

The only image of anything Herc related to be found is this matchbook cover.


Banfield’s as it looked 35 years ago.
Banfield’s as it looks today.
The two things that I notice about this list are that they are event based, not merely food based, diversions from the usual fare; and that in each case, they set a standard to which all that followed would be compared, but never matched. I understand that’s how both golf and heroin work.



How about you? What does your list look like? Let’s all get hungry together!



ADDENDUM: If I could add an 11th, it would be a deep dish Cottage Inn Mediterranean Pizza. It doesn’t quite fit the criteria for this list because I do not recall the exact moment I first tried it (although the same holds true for Sherman’s pizza), but I do recall savoring every bite of my first one. Made with olive oil, topped with Feta cheese and banana pepper rings, with a sesame seed crust, it was something other than mere pizza.

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