Bolstered by that one memorable cinematic stunt by Jason Biggs in that one teen movie, apple pie has spent the last few years in the patriotic limelight as the penultimate symbol for down-home, naturally sweet, overly-fattened, slightly flaky America–but I’ve got to disagree. For me, nothing quite screams “US of A” like a pile of crispy bacon, a helping of perfectly browned home fries, and a small mountain of fluffy scrambled eggs. As it happens, when this meal makes dreamy appearances in my head, the image also includes pretty but mismatched and well-worn dishes, a bored waitress just back from her umpteenth cigarette break, and a colorful restaurant tucked sneakily in the back pocket of some little town or a big city (I’m not particular.)
I’ll admit it: I am a diner person, in the same way that one can be a “morning person,” a “mean person,” or even a “crazy person.” Being a diner person means that I love turning off the highway on the spur of the moment to check out a new little place I’ve never noticed before; that I harbor a passion for American breakfast foods of all kinds; and that nothing, not even a pass that would allow me to skip the Usdan lunch lines, would make me happier on any given Saturday morning than to get together with a few friends and go be goofy over omelets.
I spent last semester studying in China, where the barrage of strange, fresh experiences was constant and I walked around with wide-open eyes, taking in that continuous assault of newness. There, salty, spiced noodles in broth made up the morning meal of choice, and Western breakfast was a thing of mystery. Being a diner person, in moments of culture sickness when the sensory overload became too exhausting, I would spend time conjuring images of fresh blueberry muffins or waffles. I would order coffee or make small talk with the waitress, who in my daydreams would turn out to have a degree in Veterinary Medicine or a secret love child with Don Cheadle. I should note that the Chinese bootleg DVD industry loves “Ocean’s Eleven,” so this choice of celebrity was not one hundred percent out of the blue.
Given my culinary fantasies, it follows that when I returned home I started going to diners with lip-smacking abandon, soaking up all of the maple syrup and Americana that I could absorb. But despite the efforts of the Office of International Studies, who had issued warnings on post-study abroad attitude shifts orally, in writing, by e-mail, and possibly using smoke signals, I was still surprised to find that my outlook on America had changed. Although I was back on well-trod ground, my eyes were, unexpectedly, still wide open. The diners I went to were not just bastions of familiarity–they had suddenly morphed into opportunities to learn about that fascinating and occasionally foreign entity called American Culture, a chance to “travel” in a way I was previously unable to do at home in the northeast.
It is on this concept of maintaining a “traveling” mindset and rediscovering the familiar–specifically diner culture and the rolling, green state that extends beyond our Wesleyan bubble–that I will base the columns you will read in this space in the coming weeks. Once upon a time, there were more than 100 diners in Connecticut, but the creep of urban sprawl and Big Corporate America has turned them, in the best-case scenarios, into liquor stores, in the worst cases into rubble. Where are the surviving eateries? What are their stories? Who are the people that eat and work there? What makes them charming, funky, tacky, or all three? How much gas does it take to get there, and is there anything else to do once you arrive? What happens when a person overdoses on blueberry pancakes? This intrepid columnist is about to find out.
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