STAN FREBERG HERE...What's With All These Tall Sandwiches?
Stan Freberg here. Have you noticed that in some restaurants, tall food is served to you; that is, food that is piled up high? Chefs now try and outdo themselves to obtain height. What's going on here? Be right back. [:60 SPOT BREAK]
Freberg here. In some delis like The Carnegie in New York and Nate & Al's in Beverly Hills, sandwiches have always been piled sky-high. I sit there, staring at an eight-inch heap of ham and swiss on rye, wondering how to get my mouth around it. The chef obviously thinks I'm that guy called "Jaws" in the old James Bond movies.
Now, apparently, not just delis, but regular restaurants are piling it up. An article in the Wall Street Journal says, "After years of serving up famine-sized portions, chefs have taken a U-turn, boasting about their architectural presentations."
"Atlanta's City Grill erects a pillar of seafood called the 'Towering Tuna,' and in Toront, the Tarot's head chef says, 'I try and make all my food tall.' And at New York's Gotham Bar & Grill--considered by many to be the birthplace of tall food, it says--chefs arrange asparagus spears in square latticework that looks like Lincoln Logs. Then the chicken breast is topped with a 12-inch tower of shoestring potatoes."
Fine. But I have news for The Gotham--Dagwood Bumstead is the father of tall food! The "Dagwood Sandwich," first built by the comic strip character in 1936, was the prototype of the uneatably tall sandwich.
You were just ahead of your time, Dagwood.
Stan Freberg here.
Copyright (C)1996, Stan Freberg/Freberg, Ltd. (but not very) Distributed by Dick Brescia Associates and Radio Spirits, Inc.