I have a confession: I’m not a native Baltimorean. I was born in a small town in north-central Pennsylvania.
How small was it, you ask? So small that they put mirrors at each end of the town to make it look bigger.
Being the bon vivant that I am, I was insistent with my parents that we move to a big city where I could enjoy a lifestyle to which I could grow accustomed. When I was three months old, my family moved from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, to Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore — a slight bit of irony.
My earliest recollection of the joys of dining in Baltimore were a handful of restaurants. The ones I remember best are Wilson’s on North Avenue; The Chesapeake Restaurant; Mandell’s; Allen’s on Garrison Boulevard, and Gordon’s Crabs and the Pimlico on Park Heights Avenue.
The Pimlico really sticks out in my mind. I can see the clubhouse-style dining rooms with the horseracing names and the horsy murals; waiters and waitresses with perfectly ironed uniforms responding efficiently as their numbers lit up in the fluorescent box on the wall.
The Pimlico was one of the first places to have a multi-ethnic menu with Asian food, along with Maryland classics of crab cakes and crab imperial. At this time, Baltimore was a city with limited dining choices.
My first Chinese food was in the little dining room in Hutzler’s basement. It was chicken chow mein — by today’s standards, a hair above Chun King quality.
On the other hand, we have some unusual foods unique to Baltimore. What other city could offer a coddie and a coke? Hey, for 11 cents that was a good snack after school.
Every neighborhood in the city had “Doc’s,” a corner drugstore with a fountain where the thick coke syrup was mixed with soda and put in a paper cone cup in a metallic holder. Even more odd were those who put ammonia in their cokes.
As I got older, my taste buds became more refined, and I craved something more. By the seventh grade, I was a French fry and beef gravy junkie. It is an addiction I have yet to lose and it especially goes well with a shrimp salad on rye bread.
I remember spending the summer of ‘68 in Atlantic City when kids from other cities turned up their noses to gravy on fries. I would ask, “Do you put gravy on mashed potatoes?” and they would say, “Yes.” I converted many a Philadelphian to fries-and-gravy, and I learned to eat hoagies instead of subs. It was a cultural exchange of miniscule proportions.
Tourists come to Baltimore and all they want are crab cakes. Ho hum. How mundane. From Dundalk to Essex, from the Harbor to Canton and Federal Hill to the Charles Street corridor, we have very amazing restaurants and Baltimore keeps getting better.
Just as much as the Preakness, the Orioles or the Aquarium bring people to Baltimore, it is the food that sustains us. In the view of Dr. Richard W. Wrangham, a professor of anthropology at Harvard, the preparing, cooking and sociable eating of food are so central to the human experience that the culinary arts may well be what made us human in the first place.
My fear for Baltimore is that we, the consumers, aren’t there for our local restaurants, the ones that continually support charities and Little Leagues and brighten Baltimore’s multi-ethnic uniqueness. In celebrating the joys of Baltimore, we would be remiss if we forgot our lite-fare dining to fine dining establishments.
Imagine what Artscape, the Fells Point Festival or the Flower Mart would be without the food booths. I don’t know about you but it isn’t a Baltimore celebration if you don’t have boardwalk fries, sates, tempura veggies or half a lemon with a peppermint stick protruding from its center.
In my heart, I will always consider myself a true Baltimorean. What makes Baltimore special is when a waitress comes up to you and asks, “What will we have today, Hon!”
Dara Bunjon is the host of “The Food Enthusiast,” Jmore’s Facebook Live program on all things culinary.
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