Revival - January 16, 2016
What started as a joke to another friend has me now trying to get a picture that identifies a place that isn’t their food. Something I can post at the top of the page, because the way previews are created in the archive view and on sites like Facebook, it allows a little bit more control as to how those are displayed.
(I’m nearly a month behind again. Work conferences, feeling under the weather, and social engagements will do that.)
I like to have some sort of theme when I write, even if it’s about food. When you see the picture of the food, you might see why I chose the theme I did.
Not a lot of cultures have the concept of foods that can only be eaten at certain times of day. I however live in a culture that does. So much so that we have certain foods that we are more likely to break our nightly fast with, breakfast foods as it were. Due to the way advertising works on us, and gets us to ascribe to desired behaviors, we decide that high carb and sweet things are the suitable, and recommended, first meal of the day for children. It doesn’t help that we emblazon the boxes for these things in colorful cartoon characters that speak to kids.
The way we attribute certain foods to breakfast doesn’t just affect kids, adults fall prey to the lure of eating certain foods at certain times of day too. Now I don’t mean to suggest that adults are falling prey to the same advertising that is targeted at children. But we fall into the same habit of categorizing certain foods as “breakfast” or not. The most obvious example of this is the affectation of creating portmanteaus when foods of the breakfast variety are present, a late breakfast, or early lunch is called brunch, an evening meal with a focus on typically breakfast foods is sometimes affectionately called “brinner” the foodstuffs carry the weight of their time.
Thankfully steak, fried chicken, and pizza are putting up a good fight in the battle to say all foods are good any time. Steak comes to the table with eggs as “steak & eggs” or “chicken fried steak,” chicken enters the ring as “fried chicken and waffles,” these aforementioned items still bring in the trappings of breakfast though, either through eggs or waffles. But, fried chicken can also be enjoyed cold, sometimes I prefer it that way. As it cools the moisture redistributes and some of the fat and gelatin congeals to their more solid form, so instead of being greasy, it’s still crunchy but all the more unctuous.
Pizza, now pizza is a different beast entirely, some would try to make a breakfast pizza by adding some of the trappings of what is considered breakfast: eggs, bacon, breakfast sausage, sausage gravy, etc. But regular pizza rejects the classification. Sure “pizza con uvo” is great, but nothing beats cold pizza.
And that’s really my gauge of whether a pizza is really good in is own right. If the properly topped pizza tastes great the next morning cold, then it’s a really good pie. And so I thank cold fried chicken and cold pizza for doing their part to help rid our culture of the idea that certain foods can only be enjoyed at certain times.
But as much as I rally against the rules of breakfast foods making a breakfast, one Saturday after volunteering I stopped by Revival and ordered their burger and asked them to put an egg on it. Owner Nick Rancone suggested adding the egg was making it more like breakfast. That’s what I was looking for.
Revival Burger with Double Patties, American Cheese, Bread and Butter Pickles, plus Bacon and Egg, and a side of Mac & Cheese: As much as I enjoy some of the other double cheeseburgers in town, this is my favorite, the addition of the bacon and egg really didn’t elevate it so much as give it a sideways promotion. They didn’t take anything away, but the burger can stand alone.
Chocolate Chess Pie: Really good, not as eggy as some chess pies trend. Great custard, good crust, and the whipped cream adds a little levity. I mean technically it has a bunch of eggs in it, so it’s still breakfast like, right?