I was a young boy traveling the highways and byways of the Western U.S. when we stopped at a restaurant, more of a diner really, for breakfast.

We were all given menus and spent a while deciding. I made my decision quickly, choosing two items on the menu. I held the menu up so the waitress could see it and pointed to a picture of some beautiful eggs and a slab of ham, and to another picture of a plate full of pancakes swimming in syrup, rich and thick, and an appealing pat of butter on top. Even then I had a body mass to body surface ratio that was, um, extraordinary.

"How do like your eggs?" asked the waitress.

"Fine", I replied.

My father snickered and the waitress said, "No, I mean how do like them cooked?"

I stared at her in dumb confusion and in an exasperated tone she continued, "Do you like them over easy, over hard, sunny side up, or scrambled?"

I was near tears and wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible. "Over easy", I bleated.

She turned and shrilled to someone in the kitchen, "Ham and, over easy and a short stack".

The next time we ate in a diner for breakfast I confidently and boldly told the waitress, "Ham and, over easy and a short stack"

I was thinking about the "short stack" when I arose this morning. Btw, arising is a much more difficult task for me these days. I am in my mid fifties and my body mass to body surface ratio is even more impressive now than it was when I was a kid. After completing this onerous task I asked my wife if she would prepare a "short stack"  for me. She knew immediately what I was talking about and was sweet enough to grant my wish.

It has been many years since I ate in a diner. Does anyone know if the diner jargon from the 1950s has survived? Do people still call three pancakes a "short stack". And has anyone ever heard of a "tall stack". I have never heard that term used.

I did a little research this morning and found a web site entitled "shortstack.com". It didn’t appear to have anything to do with flap jacks though. I found a couple of other sites with reference to "short stacks" in relation to the game of poker. I inferred from the context that a poker "short stack" is a stack of chips that has dwindled over the course of several poker hands.

SR

As the wife of a "Waffle House" aficionado, I must say both your description of "short stack" and your current physical demeanour are very familiar to me.
Indeed, short stacks with ham, sausage, bacon, steak, eggs, grits and various and sundry items are still served in Waffle Houses. I’ve never seen a tall stack on the menu, but the regular stack of pancakes (5, I think) are mentioned as "stacks". I presume stack is used (not utilized) because they are served one on top of the other.
If you’re in Waffle House territory, you might want to pop in and reminisce with a short stack, ham and over easy as well as double-covered hash browns for a delicious if cholestrally-challenged treat.
Hope this helps your walk down memory lane ...  :)

Thanks, RK, I will visit a Waffle House soon.

SR

I think I’ve just about translated your order, SR. Like any translation between radically different languages, I used about hundred words to translate the options and orders into British English. I’ve always had problems understanding the scenes in US films when people order those composites of fats and sugars that masquerade under the genus food.

Here, eggs are scrambled, poached, fried or boiled - it’s that simple. Boiled eggs can be hard or soft boiled - the latter is better for the utilisation of soldiers. Fried eggs are just fried. I was brought up with the assumption that ‘sunny-side-up’ was te only possible egg orientation. A few years ago, I was going out with a woman from Belfast who insisted on frying both sides. I complained that the eggs looked horrible when she cooked them, and she complaind that the eggs couldn’t possible be cooked when I did them - we are no longer together.

I like the idea of a ‘short stack’. I hope someone can find evidence for a long stack out there! ‘Flapjacks’ I thought were traybakes with a shortbread base - or am I totally ignorant of US kooizin too?

- Garzo.

‘Flapjacks’ I thought were traybakes with a shortbread base - or am I totally ignorant of US kooizin too?

In the Western U.S. pancakes were (and often still are) referred to as flapjacks by cowboys and prospectors.

I guess that in the 19th and early 20th centuries cowboys and prospectors ate flapjacks made from sourdough batter. Whenever I have tried to make pancakes with sourdough they always turn out rubbery but they taste ok.

Eggs fried on one side and then flipped to fry the other side just enough to coagulate the egg white but leave the yolk runny are "over easy". If the yolk is coagulated as well, then the eggs are "over hard".

SR

Eggs should be cooked on both sides! It’s unnerving to be stared at by one’s breakfast!

QwizEEn tit-for-tat, Garzo: what is the difference between a quick and a full-on "fry-up"?

Katy, not only do I not want my breakfast looking at me, I do not want to get "mad chicken disease"!

Avoid eating raw eggs or uncooked foods made from them.

Cook eggs until both yolk and white are firm.

[url=http://www.health.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=18842]Cook poultry, beef, and eggs thoroughly before eating.
Do not eat or drink foods made from raw or undercooked eggs, poultry, meat, or unpasteurized milk, or other dairy products made from unpasteurized milk. [/url]

gailr
still keen to learn the secrets of fry-ups

.....might as well enjoy your food, just you go and tell PW to cook his steaks all the way…...

Exactly. The difference between "pink and tender on the inside" and shoe leather is about one minute on the grill. I demand steaks that you can eat with a spoon. Nothing else really does it for me.  :)

- PW

Now, here’s something that I didn’t realise: is the over bit in over easy/hard/done an indicator of the flip of said egg? I thought it was simply an intensifier…

Being a potato person, a love the idiom ‘stick a fork in me, I’m done’.

[quote author=gailr link=board=omni;num=1088182638;start=0#6 date=06/25/04 at 22:28:03]QwizEEn tit-for-tat, Garzo: what is the difference between a quick and a full-on "fry-up"?

I still use the Ulster-Scots dialect here: a fry-up is a fry. Food tastes better without prepositions. Apart from that, Gail, je ne vous comprende pas.

I’ll have toasted brioche, orange juice and Arabic coffee for breakfast, thank you.

- Garzo

I hadn’t realised that something too [I]fried[/I] is over[I]cooked[/I]. It looks very counter-intuitive for a Swede. We use cook (‘koka’) only for preparation using boiling water. But there are of course much worse problems in kitchen terminology, semantically and culturally.

PW

Exactly. The difference between "pink and tender on the inside" and shoe leather is about one minute on the grill. I demand steaks that you can eat with a spoon.

I have to agree with you (even though I believe that eggs should be cooked until dead). My dad worked for the health department and his kids grew up knowing the consequences of all the things that might go terribly, terribly wrong in a kitchen… For the most part, it hasn’t stopped any of us from regularly breaking some of The Rules. As a rebellion against parental restriction I would order beef "medium." This was quite daring, almost like stealing the family car.

gailr
rebel without a beef

The only way to have a good steak is "blue".  ;D
As to your question about "fry-ups", gailr, I’ll ask the master fryer himself, my husband.
I’m under the impression that a "full-on" involves everything you can imagine for dinner and breakfast, fried, including the bread.
The "quick" is just sausage, bacon, eggs and probably fried bread, too. ::)
[move]The fry-up, when cholesterol doesn’t count! [/move]

Has no one ever told you not to play with your food?

All this over easy, sunny-side, short stack, full-on, medium-rare is a social nonsense ritual.

When asked how I’d like my steak, I usually respond ‘cooked’. I’m surprised I haven’t had food poisoning yet. [mental note]Do not use this line in Sweden as koka means boiled. Knowing my bad luck with Swedish mispronunciation, I’d probably Swedize the English cook into kuk. I might just be thrown out for that.[/aberration]

- Garzo.

It’s the same thing with those ridiculously large peppermills - I wonder whether the chef is unable to season the food properly - and if so, why one should draw such elaborate attention to it. I hope my chef can cook a slab of meat so as to bring out the best flavour - rather than time the procedure to some socio-political label that I learnt as an adolecent, and have always been too affraid to change. Have I said too much? Have I given away the secrets of the dark paranoias of my soul? On the other hand, I do enjoy beef tartare…

- Garzo’s Beefeater.

Oversized restaurant peppermills are to a friend of mine as the matador’s cape is to the bull…

Her philandering (ex)husband used to leeringly encourage the girls sent around to "season" patron salads where the elite meet to eat. She felt they paid him rather too much attention while gigglingly peppering his salad.

gailr
I was a waitperson in my younger years, so I know how it looks from the other side of the tray! But I also know that some girls made better tips because they really know how to crank up some rich geezer’s peppermill.

[quote author=Garzo link=board=omni;num=1088182638;start=15#18 date=06/26/04 at 20:31:25] On the other hand, I do enjoy beef tartare…

... unlike Mr. Bean ...  ;)