Out into the Great Gastronomical Unknown

I’m used to eating in Jewish restaurants. By that I don’t mean kosher restaurants although some of the restaurants I refer to or kosher or kosher-style (a term that really doesn’t mean anything but that it’s deli). I was born and raised in Pikesville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore which has a large Jewish population. A place where the Chinese restaurants are packed on Sunday nights and Christian holidays.  A place where you see a bunch of Jewish people you know in the restaurants. And of course there’s all that Jewish food and kosher places, et cetera—bagels, shmeer, lox, knish, knaidalach, and all those other Jew fancies. When I say Jewish restaurants, I don’t mean everyone is Jewish there (although its likely) or that they don’t serve non-Jews. There’s just this feeling to them of Jewish Baltimore and I know that this is where I come from.

            So I just have to say I find it really weird when I go and eat places where there's a small Jewish population. The question always comes to my mind “Are me and my family the only Jewish people in this restaurant?” This is always the case when my family goes to Friendly Farms, which is an old  “family style restaurant” out on a ex-farm in Cowtown Upperco, Maryland. We usually go at least once a year for someone’s birthday in the summer (and this past Sunday was that day for my uncles birthday dinner).  The drive there is just stunning—rolling verdant fields, sheep, horses, cows, an abundance of burnt red farmhouses. I love that long ride over. Then you get to the restaurant which is a large restored farmhouse. The air smells like manure as we exit the car. My sister and I go into the gift shop attached to the restaurant. It’s cramped with old candies, jams, honeys, cheap knick-knacks. Oh, and lots of angels, more crosses than I’ve ever seen in one place, and even a gifts for children called “prayer bags” where kids can have fun picking out little prayers from an ugly bag (is it a game?)

Then we go into the restaurant and wait in the large, loud, waiting rooms crowded with families. And there that feeling comes. We go into the dining hall, a terrifically kitschy room with large long tables covered in plastic, red, plain tablecloths. The paper place mats on the table have a photo of the restaurant with writing on it. It says “Feel free to say a blessing over your food in your faith”. There are three blessings or graces: the catholic grace, the protestant grace, and underneath ‘Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the world who brings forth bread from the ground” is written “Hebrew”. Sure they called me a Hebrew, but at least they remembered me. This makes me laugh and that question of “Are we the only Jews?” stops pestering me. I move onto the food. The tables are covered with bowls when we get there—canned peaches, fried sugar rolls, applesauce, cottage cheese,  apple butter, pickles (hey! There’s something I know!)—and we pass them around. The entrees and sides come—Maryland crab cakes, fried chicken, fried shrimp, green beans, sweet corn, T-bone steaks (yeah, my family doesn't keep kosher)—and we do more passing. I don’t eat non-kosher meat and seafood so I just eat the cold foods. I go to take some string beans and I find there are a few pieces of juicy pork in it (I still don’t know if that was an accident or was purposeful) which gives me quite a shock. I decide I’ll pass on the hot foods. I used to come here when I wasn’t kosher (about a year or so ago) and would gladly enjoy a crab-cake, and it wasn’t exactly so strange here in treife land.

Yet, despite all that I’m eating is canned peaches and ice cream. I start to get comfortable at the table and enjoy myself in this foreign foodland. There’s something really nice about this place. I love the family feel. It reminds me a little of the same feeling I get when I go into kosher restaurants which are usually family orientated, but different. I like passing the food around and being able to talk loudly. I like seeing the beautiful scenery of the window. After the dinner, my siblings and cousins go out to the lake next to the restaurant with some “free duck food” we picked up from the gift shop (dried corn and bird seeds in an ice cream cone) and start feeding the geese. Despite all the treifeness, this place will always be one of my favorite restaurants to go to with my family. I have a secret dream of starting my own Jewish farmhouse family-style restaurant one day in the country. Until that time, I’ll settle for canned peaches and ice cream at Friendly Farms.