Our Centennial City- A Lakewood Kid's Food, A Half-Century Ago...(Popcorn, Anyone?)

Scene of the crime- Our once-popcorn-blackened aluminum roaster, atop Mom's stove, along with a very poor imitation of a Prange's grilled cheese, ready for the grill (Photo by Robert Rice)

I really don't like admitting this, but I just don't cook much. Being born without a significant sense of smell limited my time in the kitchen. Sure, I can taste whatever sweet, sour, salty, hot, and cold sensations the tongue can offer, but still, if you blindfolded me and alleviated the "crunch" factor, I would be hard pressed to tell you whether I was munching on a hot dog or an egg roll.

Having ear, nose, and throat conditions while growing up, I looked at food primarily as fuel for the body, and little else. I've been told that smell is one of the prime motivators to get the "hungries" going, so when I was young I was underweight and practically had to be forced to eat. When my parents took me out to a nice restaurant, they were often embarrassed when I told them that all I wanted was a grilled cheese while they wanted steak dinners. A throat condition also caused me to prefer softer food, as I had trouble swallowing from time to time. When I did eat a sandwich, I needed to have the crust cut off the bread first, and the sandwiches were all soft ones, perhaps containing mayonnaise, Vienna sausages, potted meat, cheese, or maybe bananas.

One funny story about this lack of a sense of smell comes from my childhood, and it concerned my discovery of a cute little black and white animal out in the yard. When I came in to tell Mother about it, I was quickly marched back outside and given a tomato juice bath in a galvanized tub in order to get rid of the skunk spray, something I had otherwise never noticed.

Now, I never said that I NEVER tried to cook. I did so...once...I was home by myself in my early teen years while the family was out getting groceries. As dinner time neared, the "hungries" reared their little heads, and I headed to the kitchen. At that point, I looked around for something to eat. Finding only a full jar of popcorn kernels, I decided that would have to do. The trouble was that I was unsure how to make popcorn. Knowing that Mom seemingly always preheated the oven to 325 degrees for most everything, I did the same. That quart jar of popcorn did not look like a lot of food to me, so I poured the entire contents into Mom's aluminum roasting pan, along with about half a box of salt, along with the same amount of sugar and a full stick of butter for good measure. I then put the lid on the roaster, put the mix into the stove, and went off to build a model car.

There was a swinging door that led into our kitchen back then, and I suppose it was the billowing black smoke coming from under that door that alerted me to the fact that things were not as they should have been. Entering the kitchen, I discovered that the oven door had been blown open by an ever-growing hoard of blackened gooey popcorn kernels that were incessantly making their way across our formerly pristine kitchen floor. Of course, it was at that exact moment that my parents came home.

My cooking days were over.

Back then, we did not have a great deal of money either. Dad's starting teacher's salary was pitifully low for the first few years, so our family got along the best we could. Beans, being low in cost and high in protein, were a dietary staple, so we often had beans and macaroni, beans and cornbread, or beans with whatever else could be found on sale at the market. Mom, however, always tried to insure that we had a balanced meal. We had to clean our plates as well, and we were always being reminded of those starving children elsewhere in the world.

One of the great "trip" foods that she prepared when we went out of town was a simple delicacy of peanut butter and vanilla wafers. That combination made for a tasty and nutritious blend of palate-pleasing lusciousness that made the miles seem to pass by so much more quickly.

We didn't always eat at home. Once in a while, we splurged by going out to some of the local restaurants. There was Beardens on Warren Road, close to where the Board of Education is now, and then there was Manners Big Boy on Detroit. Hamburgers, shakes, and fries were usually the order of the day at those places. We also occasionally enjoyed a trip to Kenny Kings in Rocky River, site of the present-day "Joe's." Kenny Kings was where you could find Colonel Sanders' famous chicken back then.

Once we went out to a Chinese restaurant. I'd never been to one and, unfortunately, I had recently seen a Korean War propaganda movie where our soldiers were being tortured by the "Reds." My imagination ran rampant, as I thought we might be poisoned! I pitched a royal fit, and also paid for that fit royally when the family came back home after their evening meal had been ruined by my behavior. Ironically, these days I absolutely love Chinese food.

My favorite all-time Lakewood kid restaurant food was the grilled cheese sandwich that you could get at Mel Prange's Diner, where the Golden Gate Chinese Restaurant presently sits at Hilliard and Madison. Mel made that grilled cheese sandwich in a special way by reversing a buttered hamburger bun on a hot griddle and pressing down on it, with that great cheese squeezing out between the bun tops. Although they do not offer grilled cheese sandwiches there nowadays, the Won Ton soup and that great Hong Kong Chicken presently available from Golden Gate comprise two of my favorite Lakewood dishes!

That said, I do keep bugging some of the other great places around town to bring back that great Prange's grilled cheese. I guess that deep down, I'm still a Lakewood kid at heart!

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Volume 7, Issue 19, Posted 8:27 AM, 09.21.2011