a new york times article about charlie trotter closing his restaurant came across my twitter feed on sunday. the person who shared the link seemed a bit taken aback, if not offended, by the "stockyards palate" mention in the headline. i shared the outrage at first, primarily in a "how dare this nyt writer talk about chicago in such a way" kind of way.
but then i thought about it. charlie trotter's has been open for 25 years, which means i would've been, oh, 10 years old or so when it first opened. my memories of dining out from that age that didn't involve mcdonald's or other fast food? old country buffet and any number of chain steakhouses - ponderosa, bonanza, sizzler, etc. oh, and shoney's, but that was for the breakfast buffet and we were almost always traveling when that happened. this was also during the time when kids could be fooled into thinking that "chopped steak" was a fancy meal, instead of a hamburger sans bun. yes, that happened to me. i was probably a freshman in high school when i was allowed to upgrade to real cuts of steak. mmm...steak. i've definitely become more adventurous in my food choices as i age, but steak and potatoes never fails to make me a happy girl.
i say all of that to say that, maybe, the notion of my fair city having a stockyards palate back in the day isn't that farfetched. i'd love to hear from other folks who grew up around here and can remember going out to dinner w/their families. where'd you go? what kind of impact do you think those types of restaurants/meals had on your current palate?
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