I’m trying to think of a list of the words you associate with the way diners and cafeterias used to name their dishes, and I’m stumped. You know what I mean - anything you can imagine coming after the word “Meatloaf” or “Tuna” on a menu. So far I have:
Supreme
Surprise
Delight
Extraordinaire
Special
Bonanza
Can you add any?
Would that include a style, like
Romanoff, or
au gratin?
One of the dishes has to be intorduced as “MOM’s ___”
And if Tarantino hasn’t ruined the word forever, you should have a dish called ____ ROYALE."
I love “Easy Perfection Salad.” I’ve found recipes in several vintage cook books.
It’s basically vegetables in lemon jello.
“Delight” is used a lot.
Or adding an ethnicity description to the dish. Like “Japanese Meatloaf” might just have soy sauce in it or “Mexican Rice” might have tomatoes and peppers.
Great ideas, guys, thank you! Royale is exactly what I’m going for… any more?
Melt.
Half the sandwiches in any diner are a “melt” of some sort.
Or with someone’s name attached. Pete’s Chicken Pot Pie. Amy’s Peach Cobbler.
Cordon Blue
Blue Plate Special
“What’s ‘Beefo Rancho?’”
“Tuesday’s hash with Wednesday’s gravy.”
______Plate (such as the Tuna Melt plate)
“Schmeatloaf”.
Grand Slam - usually in reference to breakfast foods
Combo - obviously for combination plates
Platter
A La ____ (King, Orange, etc)
______ Deluxe
Also, to give something an Asian flair, whether it’s from China or Vietnam, add “Cantonese” at the end.
Also, if you slap some pineapple chunks on meatloaf or a hamburger, you’ve made it “Hawaiian.”
_____ Scramble. “Lemme have the Mexican scramble.”
_____ Hash.
“Plate” is a good one. The most famous is probably Nick Tahou’s “Garbage Plate”.
excuse me, flo? what’s the soup dejour?
It’s the soup of the day.
Perfection Salad was such a cliche in 50’s cookbooks that Laura Shapiro called her book about postwar American food after the dish. It’s a good read, though out of print now unfortunately.
The ordering of any diner dish must, by law, be preceded by the question: “What’ll it be, hon?”
Use avacado instead and you get “California”.