[PRCo] How far off TRACK can we get????

[Fred Schneider]

We have had a long discussion, mostly involving Dwight and Bob Rathke and myself (and anyone else who gives a hoot) about the trains into Cleveland and my questions about how the jets took away their business.

While having dinner tonight in a Mexican restaurant, I began to wonder, did aviation also influence how we eat?   

Let me walk you slowly into this….

In the 1940s and 1950s we had tremendous regional variations in cuisine in the different parts of the United States.   For example, ham and eggs in Virginia meant Smithfield Ham.   Eggs for breakfast in the southeast always meant grits will be served on with the eggs … like-em-or-not you will have grits with a dollop of butter on the plate.   New Mexico had its favorites like chicken fried steak (breaded steak tossed into a deep fat fryer).   Chinese food?   Why you went to Chinatowns in places like New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles for that.  Pierogies?   You might find them in the coal regions like Shenandoah or Wilkes-Barre or Scranton, PA.  

But today we find all sorts of food everywhere….   Well, everywhere but Washington, Pennsylvania.   :<)  

And I have been questioning why and have come up with the following reasons.


1)  Background:    In the 1940s and 1950s we traveled by train or automobile on two-lane roads at an average speed of 30 miles per hour.   You did not get very far in a day.   Two things happened almost simultaneously.   Jet planes and better navigation systems happen after 1958.   The very first interstate highway shields were erected in 1958 or 1959.   Both spread like a grass fire in a drought.  Suddenly it was possible for us to fly cross country in a six hours or drive across the nation in three or four days if you were a maniac. 

2)  Background:  Prior to the 1945 vacations were essentially a perk of the rich, management and executives.   After World War II it became a common perk of the rank and file.   You no longer had to risk getting fired for taking a week off without pay to take a railfan trip  (or any trip).     

3)  Background:  Prior to the 1960s many states had rules preventing any form of intermingling of races let along intermarriage of races.   Today if I want collard greens and black-eyed peas, best place to get them is to go to my granddaughter's home when her mother-in-law is visiting and bringing some of her home-cooked delicacies.   Yes, his side of the family is African American and southern.   I recall having dinner a few years ago in a Chinese restaurant in Hardeeville, SC … Chinese lady was the hostess, her African-American hubby was in the kitchen cooking … 30 years earlier they would both have been thrown in prison for intermarriage.   But obviously that does spread cuisines around.   I suspect that the big change is Chinese living with Mexicans or Whites with Blacks today but then I imagine that it was probably a really big deal in the 1890s when my German grandfather went up in Herron Hill and fell in love with an Irish girl … that wasn't proper then either.   

OK guys … what did I miss?   What causes all these wonderful foods to move around?   I think we can agree that food is much more homogenized today … we no longer have to go to West Texas or Arizona to find a really good Mexican meal … you can find authentic Mexican anywhere (and bad Mexican anywhere).  But what causes it to move?   What did I miss?   What is most important?  And since Dwight's wife was in the restaurant business, I expect him to respond.