The End of a (Breakfast) Era

Breakfast out will never be the same again. Our favorite place just burned down. The Midway Meal House was one of those southern "meat and three" places that was housed in (wait for it) a house. It was an old house with rooms that might have been ample for family living but were pretty small for tables that seat four.

The house was old enough for every last piece of wood to be aged to perfection. Speculation is that the fire was caused by an electrical short. Doesn't matter - if it wasn't an electrical short, the spark thrown off by a waitress's tongue stud against one of her fillings would have taken the place down sooner or later.

This place had the best breakfasts IN THE WORLD. I've had lunch there a few times and even supper about five years ago after we discovered it, but those meals were parallelled (opposite of unparalleled). But breakfasts. The eggs tasted like eggs, meaning they fried 'em over easy in butter. (Alas, the art of basted eggs has been lost here along with most breakfast places. This will be the topic of another toast in the weeks ahead.) The bacon was not too fat and the "chef" cooked 'em to just the right doneness - they would almost break instead of being soft enough to cut with a fork. I usually had to put my hand up when I'd break the bacon because if I didn't, a piece of bacon would leap off the plate and onto my lap or all the wayto the floor.

But the biscuits and gravy made it all work - nice flaky but not too dry or too big biscuits and creamy white gravy with little chunks of sausage suspended in the glorious semi-fluid. Always served in a little bowl, they weren't presumptuous enough to split the biscuit in two and pre-ladle the gravy over the two halves. They let YOU decide how you wanted to eat 'em. I liked to break the biscuits into little chunks and blend them into the bowl. The concoction was thick enough to eat with a fork, but even so, when I get towards the bottom of the little bowl, I would either switch to a spoon or pick up the last, slightly larger piece of biscuit, and mop the last of the gravy out of the bowl and into my mouth.

The owner says he'll rebuild, but even if he does, it won't be the same. It's like the chapter in Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" where grandma's family finally persuades her to organize the way she cooks and label all her ingredients in the pantry. She went from being the best cook of the best food in the world to the worst. She didn't get it back until some kind-hearted soul trashed her pantry and burned the cookbooks. Then she could use a pinch of this and a dollop of that and her true country culinary artistry returned.

When, and if, the Meal House is reborn, it sure won't be in a big old house. It'll probably be in a metal building. The new ovens and griddles and fryers will be ... new. How on earth can they impart flavor to the food if they don't have 20 years worth of the experience (food residue)? They can't.

And the waitresses. These were real people with weight problems, imperfect teeth, piercings (including the tongue stud mentioned above), mismatched uniforms and warm, comfort-inducing personalities. Of course they called everybody hon. No hokey aprons or striped shirts or suspenders, for heaven's sake.

And cheap. My breakfast cost less than five bucks, including coffee. Pammie's fave, that had a little of everything including her favorite breakfast food (fourth favorite if you include all food. Her more favorite foods were M&Ms, popcorn and TAB - yes, they still make it), pancakes. How the heck are they going to keep the lid on prices when they have a new building and foodservice equipment to buy.

It's the end of an era.