Sometimes You Feel Like a Nutburger

Nut Kettle advertisement, October 1937, Playgoer for “Miss Quis” at the Mayan Theatre. Library of Congress, Music Division, Federal Theatre Project Collection

Today when we hear about nutburgers we typically assume it's a vegetarian patty that features nuts in its mixture, but when nutburgers were introduced in Southern California in the 1930s they were something completely different. They were beef hamburgers topped with chopped nuts and served on a toasted bun.

During the 1930s and 1940s, newspaper columnists that covered Hollywood reported on the celebrities who went in big for the nutburger including George Raft, Clark Gable, Groucho Marx, Mary Pickford, and James Cagney. Advertisements at the time called nutburgers “Hollywood’s Most Famous Sandwich.” Notable Hollywood novels, including Aldous Huxley’s Many a Summer Dies the Swan, Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust, and Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, mention the nutburger and/or the nutburger stand. This indicates the trendiness of nutburgers at the time, but also perhaps the eccentricity of Hollywood to outside observers.

Gates Nut Kettle, which was on Sunset Blvd near Doheny, was the popular purveyor of nutburgers. According to a 1935 Los Angeles Times article about (what we now call) the Sunset Strip, Frank W. Gates opened the Nut Kettle in 1928. He later added a Palm Springs location. When he passed away in 1937, his oldest son Frank Jr. was in charge of the Los Angeles location, while his son John ran Palm Springs. Thankfully at least one customer swiped a menu from the Los Angeles location and wrote down the ingredients on a Nut Kettle nutburger. The hamburger was thin, the lettuce was shredded fine, the mayonnaise was spread easy, the mustard was spread easy, the relish was “fine pickle,” and the nuts were chopped fine.

Menu from The Nut Kettle with inset of menu contents and handwritten note with nutburger ingredients (circa 1937). Tiffney Sanford Collection.

But what type of nuts were used? While I wasn’t able to find a reference to the kinds of nuts used at the Nut Kettle, recipes in newspapers and cookbooks that I found were varied– peanuts, walnuts, or pecans were used to top a hamburger patty. I wanted to make the Nut Kettle nutburger at home and decided to use peanuts. One burger was made just as handwritten on the menu (with separate ingredients) and one burger was made with the toppings combined (which was described in a 1940 fan magazine). The burger with separate ingredients definitely won out. You could actually taste each addition, whereas the burger with the ingredients combined was not as memorable. In addition to the original, the Nut Kettle also sold the nutburger with cheese, and with cheese, tomato, and bacon.

Hankering for a more contemporary nutburger? Your Los Angeles Public Library card gives you access to the Los Angeles Times archive where I found the August 15, 1991 Culinary SOS column, written by Rose Dosti, that offered a recipe for a nutburger from the Follow Your Heart restaurant. Their vegetable and bulgur burger features raw almonds, raw cashews, and raw walnuts, as well as sunflower seeds. I haven’t tried it yet but I am still thinking about that Nut Kettle nutburger….

Found in the Stacks of the Los Angeles Public Library: Salute to the Salad Maker

A salad maker and customer at Boos Bros. cafeteria from Glancing Back Along the Cafeteria Trail (1926) Los Angeles Public Library Special Collections

Salads are my go-to meal when the days heat up and I was curious about their place in the culinary history of Los Angeles. What types of salads were Angelenos making and eating in the early 20th century? I went searching in the Los Angeles Public Library’s collections and resources for salads and salad making in Los Angeles and found quite a few interesting things.

First, I perused two of the library’s oldest Los Angeles-based cookbooks, Los Angeles Cookery (1881) and How We Cook in Los Angeles (1894). Both were written as church fundraisers and feature recipes supplied by prominent local women. Curiously, salad recipes in Los Angeles Cookery were found in the chapter on Sauces. Homemade mayonnaise was the most popular “sauce” for salads. The book had seven mayonnaise recipes in the short chapter, each with various additions such as sugar, mustard or cayenne. Chicken salad was the most popular salad– represented by multiple recipes– followed by potato salad and cabbage salad. Salads were treated to their own chapter in How We Cook in Los Angeles. Here French dressing joined the mayonnaise recipes, and salads include fruit and vegetable salads as well as a number of seafood salads, all of which highlight their specific ingredient.

While searching in historical local newspapers I was intrigued to read about the “salad makers” themselves. [It was even an occupation designation on the census!] Los Angeles city directories listed the professionals with the designation ‘salad mkr’. Many of those listed worked at cafeterias and tea rooms. According to these early twentieth century newspapers, the qualities that made an excellent salad maker included the ability to mix complementary ingredients in a specific order, and the successful blending of mayonnaise sauces. Salad maker tips included their preference for tearing lettuce leaves instead of cutting them, the encouragement to use wooden implements, and the practical advice of adding bell peppers and cucumbers on the side of the plate as garnish so they could be picked off the salad if desired.

The library’s menu collection, some of which is digitized and available on their website, is another great way to learn what types of salads Angelenos were eating. For example, a few of the salads listed on a seventy-year-old Musso & Frank menu in the library’s holdings can still be ordered at the restaurant today, including the Avocado Salad, Chiffonade Salad and Musso-Frank Special. Meanwhile, a Smoke House menu from a similar era shows how their salad options have grown considerably. In the 1950s you could order a chef’s salad or fruit salad, while today you can also get a beet & quinoa salad, or their barbecued chicken salad. You can even order Hollywood's legendary Cobb salad at the Smoke House restaurant in Burbank, or you can try making a variation of the original at home. A recipe for Robert Cobb’s salad can be found in The Brown Derby Cookbook (1949) available at the Central Library. It is interesting to note that the recipe’s salad greens included iceberg, romaine, watercress and chicory. Many of the Brown Derby recipes feature their French dressing, which according to the cookbook was bottled and sold to the public. I gotta say, their French dressing recipe was easier to perfect than the mayonnaise recipes we tried!

Found in the Stacks of the Los Angeles Public Library: Victory Vittles (1941-1945)

Do you enjoy perusing cookbooks for new-to-you tasty recipes? I often get lost in the aisles for quite a long time browsing the culinary collection at the Central Library. With food prices on the rise I thought back to stories my grandmother would tell of ration books, shortages of sugar and meat, and her dislike of butter substitutes. Butter substitutes aside, maybe World War II era cookbooks could offer up some tips for stretching a food budget.

The library has a large selection of cookbooks from 1941-1945 to choose from. Some are only available for use at the library but it was very easy to ask at the Science and Technology reference desk on Lower Level 2/LL2 for them to be pulled. [And don’t forget, the cookbooks you see on the shelves are just a fraction of the cookbooks available, there are even more in the library’s closed stacks that can be pulled upon request.] Many of the cookbooks I looked at gave recipes featuring foodstuffs unaffected by rationing, substitutes for sugar, tips on what to pack in a factory worker’s lunch, and information on growing your own food in a victory garden. Reading the recipes was fascinating, especially the ingredient pairings and recipe formats. Although some dishes such as Peanut Butter Loaf, which included lima beans and cooked carrots mixed with breadcrumbs, were best left as reference only. And yes–whether you call it dried beef, chipped beef, or frizzled beef– many of the cookbooks include variations on the popular SOS dish. There are also numerous World War II era cookbooks available to check out. I was pleasantly surprised by one particular book published in Hollywood in 1943 titled Coupon Cookery, A Guide to Good Meals Under Wartime Conditions of Rationing and Food Shortages by Prudence Penny. In addition to food substitution information, there were several pages of money-saving tips (e.g. how to jazz up leftovers, root-to-stem cooking), fun illustrations, and regionally-named recipes such as Los Angeles Pot Pie and Balboa Summer Salad. Prudence Penny, the pseudonym used by food column/home economics writers in Hearst newspapers nationwide, was in this case (according to local newspaper accounts) Lucile Martens who wrote for the Los Angeles Examiner from 1941-1944. Another former Examiner Prudence Penny, Pauline Saylor Patterson (aka Polly Patterson), had a radio show on KFAC. In 1942 she put the call out to her listeners to share their own recipes of “foods for defense.” The recipes were gathered and published as Victory Vittles. Visit the library to learn more about those vittles.

The library offers books that explain the hows and whys and ins and outs of rationing. Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America by Harvey Levenstein offers a great overview on the food shortages, nutritional values, and government agencies that affected cookery during World War II. But whatever you do, don’t miss M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf (1942). Ms. Fisher described what it was like to set food on the table during World War II, and in a revised edition in the 1950s, reflected on her original book in retrospect. There was something to take away from each of the books I looked through, and more than one something to leave right where it was….

Photo captions- Photo 1: Lunch for the factory worker from Wartime Canning and Cooking Book by Josephine Gibson Photo 2: Illustration from Coupon Cookery (1943)

Found in the Stacks of the Los Angeles Public LIbrary: Chef Wyman (1927)

Trusted Southern California culinary arts experts of the 1930s and 40s, such as the pseudonymous Marian Manners of the Los Angeles Times and Prudence Penny of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, owed a debt of thanks to Chef A.L. Wyman for locally demonstrating and popularizing the economical preparation of food in the home. While the household tips and recipes of Marian Manners and Prudence Penny are still referenced today, Chef Wyman remains largely forgotten.

Born in Sacramento in 1875, Arthur Leslie Wyman represented Globe Grain and Milling Company (known for Globe A-1 flour) and Southern California Edison in cooking demonstrations across Southern California beginning in the 1910s. The press touted him as “a culinary artist of international fame,” possessing a Master of Culinary Arts degree plus experience at large bake shops and hotel kitchens around the world including the Waldorf Astoria (New York), Rector’s (New York and Chicago), Alexander Young Hotel (Honolulu) and Shepheard’s (Cairo).

During World War I, in addition to teaching housewives how to use their new electric stoves, Chef Wyman lectured on “war economy cooking” and food conservation. This included tips on cooking with food scraps; canning fruits and vegetables; finding substitutes for wheat, flour and butter; conserving sugar; and introducing meatless dishes (using walnuts, beans or peas as meat substitutes) to your family. Interested in how to bake “war bread” by combining potatoes with barley or oats? Chef Wyman, along with his wife and cooking assistant Mabelle, taught you how.

Beginning in 1922, Chef Wyman parlayed his fame into a weekly column in the Los Angeles Times titled “Practical Recipes: Helps [sic] for Epicures and All Who Appreciate Good Cooking.” Readers were invited to submit questions and recipe requests to Chef Wyman’s Glendale test kitchen that he would answer in the column. Requests poured in from residents and tourists alike and the column featured 12-16 recipes each week. In addition to requests for specific recipes, Chef Wyman tackled topics such as growing and drying your own herbs, cooking with locally caught fish, and making jelly and preserves with locally available fruit (one example used the fruit of the Spanish Bayonet). His recipes, written out as an instructional paragraph, proved popular and readers often asked where they could buy his cookbook. After explaining he did not have a cookbook to sell, he urged readers to cut his recipes out of the newspaper and file them away.

Sadly, Chef Wyman passed away in October 1926. His wife Mabelle took over duties on the Practical Recipes column in the Times and finally published a cookbook of the late chef’s recipes. The cookbook features recipes using California fruits and vegetables, including dishes he created and named after the towns of his readers– Sunland Salad, Eggs Riverside, Eggs Shirred Willowbrook, Hollywood Salmon, Pomona Salad, Gardena Sandwich and Los Angeles parfait. Check it out for yourself, Chef Wyman’s Daily Health Menus (1927) is available at the Los Angeles Public Library.

Curious about the history of culinary coverage in the Los Angeles Times? The library has past Culinary Historian of Southern California lectures available to borrow on CD, including “Food and the Times: A Century of California Cuisine as Recorded by the Los Angeles Times” and “The L.A. Times Food Section Gals.”

Before Pink's: Hot Dogs in Southern California Prior to 1939

Just as the East Coast is the bastion of hot dog history, Southern California has traditionally been seen as a hamburger mecca, thanks in part to its car culture and drive-in architectural masterpieces such as Simon’s, Roberts Brothers, and Bob’s Big Boy. Alternately Southern California has a few beloved hot dog emporiums that still draw a crowd half a century or more after they opened. Pink’s has been in business 77 years; Art’s (the proclaimed birthplace of chili dog) also opened in 1939; Cupid’s just celebrated their 70th anniversary; and [Der] Wienerschnitzel is celebrating their 55th anniversary on Monday, July 11, 2016 with 55¢ chili, mustard, or kraut dogs. But what was southern California’s relationship with the hot dog in the years before 1939?

Whether called a hot dog, red hot, wienerwurst, or frankfurter, Los Angeles had a love affair with the wiener by the 1890s. A September 1894 article in the Los Angeles Times noted a high concentration of food carts and could be found near Main and First, thanks in a large part to the proliferation of saloons in the area. The wienerwurst carts competed alongside the popular tamale men and oyster carts. By 1896, Cline Bros. grocery was selling 3 cans of imported frankfurters for $1.00 (comparable to a little over $27 today, no word on how many franks were in a can). Purchasing in this quantity would have been attractive to hot dog vendors. The following year Cline’s advertised the price of frankfurters per can, instead of as a bundle. This suggests more families were buying hot dogs for home consumption.

Hot dog for the masses

As early twentieth century Los Angeles grew into a metropolis, it was already a city of incredible diversity and varied socio-economic backgrounds. The hot dog was cheap and easy to eat, a combination that drew its share of fans especially among working class Angelenos and tourists. Stands and carts that sold the delicacy could be found anywhere there was a crowd—in the city, at the beaches, at sporting events, and even feeding those attending the areas many religious revivals.

City governments in southern California were not fans of hot dog enthusiasts, nor were they amused by the variety of slang terms for a “frank.” During the summer of 1920 Venice city trustees passed an ordinance that all Venice “red hot” stands (as hot dog stands were known in Venice) would be banished by the following year. Los Angeles City Council followed suit in August 1920 and held a public hearing that proposed the banishment of food carts that the health department deemed unsanitary. Councilmen Frederick C. Wheeler and Ralph Luther Criswell were the only two city officials that defended the carts. Slang, and those that used it, were an affront to decency. In 1916 the Pomona City Council objected to a Ganesha Park concessionaire who advertised hot dogs, “bow-wows,” “ki-yis” and “red hots.” The Pomona Police Commissioner complained that “such terms as ‘hot dog’ are beneath the dignity of the people who pay taxes to keep up this beautiful resort.” By the early 1920s, San Fernando Valley residents were complaining that hot dog stands along Ventura Boulevard were creating an eyesore and should be removed.

Ugly hot dog stands were not merely a local problem. In 1928, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. sponsored a contest to “oust the slapstick, three-for-a-nickel hot dog stands along highways, and to encourage the high-grade stands to become more beautiful to blend with the landscape.” The contest offered $1000 in prizes. W.H. Young’s hot dog stand in Ontario (CA) one third place, he was beat by a stand in New York and a stand in New Jersey. It was not just the stands themselves that were a problem—hot dog sellers, and buyers, were often seen as a nuisance.

Occasionally the Los Angeles Times reported the behavior of those associated with frankfurters. These incidents no doubt shocked the city’s Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority. For example, it was a “hot dog” sandwich (quotes included, in the parlance of the time) that led to a 1910 lunch stand brawl at Central and Fifth Street. The fight left one allegedly drunk and belligerent man dead, and the other—a sober cigar store owner—claiming self-defense. Hot dogs were also an accomplice in the arrest of Dan Boggie and Ben Dunkle in April 1922. Boggie and Dunkle ran a hot dog stand under the Savoy Hotel. Their specialty was—Prohibition be damned—a ginger-ale highball and a hot dog for 60 cents (approximately $8.50 today). The Times noted that the arresting officer had been a patron every day for a week.

Hot dogs came to the rescue of “thirsty” Angelenos in the days before the Volstead Act. A large number of saloons existed in pre-Prohibition Los Angeles alongside an even larger congregation of temperance minded people who were both politically active and vocal. One 1901 jury verdict had the teetotalers up in arms. Section 34 of the city ordinance, which addressed the terms under which saloons could operate under on Sundays, stated that a bona fide meal should consist of a quantity and quality of food that might serve as a meal in hotels and restaurants. Those in violation faced arrest or the loss of their operating license. In November 1901 a jury disagreed with the City Council and Police Commission (who were both Section 34 defenders and authorities of the “bona fide meal”) and decided that a “kiln-dried wienerwurst and stale bread” was sufficient enough to constitute a lawful bona fide meal and thereby satisfied the rules of the Sunday Law. This verdict allowed many a saloonkeeper to keep his doors open and the liquor flowing on Sunday.

On a less ominous note, wieners were perfect holiday fare! In 1912, the Times commented that Venice’s shoreline “where dwells the elusive pink lemonade and hot dog” was packed on Easter Sunday. Over the 1913 July 4th holiday weekend it was estimated that 150,000 visited Venice, Ocean Park, and Santa Monica. The famished visitors caused provision houses to run out of supplies and hot dog stands to close down without a way to replenish their precious commodity. Who doesn’t love a PE car to the shore on a holiday weekend? In January 1918 one vendor in Venice at Windward Avenue and Trolleyway sold his spot and his kettle for $400 ($6000ish today). His friends said he earned $15 to $25 a day in the spot ($200-300 today). Popularity and profit margin assured that the hot dog business was profitable.

It was this supply and demand that had stands popping up overnight at popular events throughout the southland. During the mid-1910s there are descriptions of several events, such as the Rose Parade and the auto races, that actually mention the price of a “hot dog” was ten cents, double what it was everywhere else though ‘nobody kicked’ about the inflated rate. The flipside of this coin is the fact that bread men stocking said hot dog vendors at Ascot Park in March 1916 were actually helping to smuggle people past the admission gate.

Today, hot dogs are a ubiquitous 4th of July foodstuff but they were not always nationalist fare. During World War I, it was one’s patriotic duty to eschew hot dogs on both ‘meatless Tuesday’ and ‘wheatless Friday.’ Unfortunately for Pasadena-bound vendors, the normally lucrative Rose Parade fell on ‘meatless Tuesday’ in 1918. There were also dangerous hot dog mishaps in Pasadena. Onlookers were horrified when the gas stove of a hot dog vendor exploded during the 1925 Rose Parade in Pasadena. Five people were severely injured and “burned a score of others.” The accident prompted the Pasadena City Manager, C.W. Koiner, to consider an ordinance banning gasoline stoves and ovens on the streets of the city.

It’s a wonder there were not more instances of fatalities when stoves were surrounded by crowds of people. In the early 1920s, miracle man and healer Brother Isaiah drew crowds of curious people to a hill opposite Lincoln Park. Hot dog man C.L. Rising set up his stand on the aptly dubbed Miracle Hill and as you can suspect he was not the only concessionaire. Unfortunately for Rising, a Hughes ice cream truck backed into his stand, causing a chain of events that led to an explosion of his gas stove, burning Rising and the $200 profits (approximately $2800 today) he had in his pocket. The Los Angeles Times makes no mention of the price of his dogs but the profits indicate they were popular.

Hot dogs were popular enough that they became the target of thieves. One case in October 1924 took place near Simons brickyard. A man padlocked his fully stocked hot dog stand and left his bulldog inside to protect it. He returned to find the padlock broken, his dog still inside, and $76 worth (approximately $1000 today) of wieners missing. He promptly gave the police the short list of people his bulldog would not attack.

Frankfurters and fundraisers!

Well-to-do Angelenos favored wieners for their events. Hot dogs were on the bill of fare at the big Actors’ Fund Festival in June 1921. Most motion picture studios participated in the fundraising event that benefitted “actors of yesteryear” (and was a precursor to the Motion Picture and Television Fund). One impressive offering was the “Adornment of Woman” pageant, which featured “700 motion picture stars” wearing fashions “back to the age of Eve.” Society women, clubmen, and authors were also involved in the event that took raised $100,000 (approximately $1.3 million today). The hot dog stands were hosted by Mrs. Granville MacGowan who persuaded society girls to dole out the dogs. (Fun tidbit: Mr. MacGowan was the founder of the Los Angeles Health Department!) Hot dogs also fed attendees of the Society Circus in September 1921. Every dollar earned at the event was added to a fund to build the Hollywood Bowl. The Los Angeles Times noted, “The pedigree hot-dog stand, under the care of [Hollywood Chamber of Commerce member] Edward Bogardus, is said to have on hand 4000 pounds of meat.” Hot dogs were the food of choice at a noon to midnight Ebell Club fundraiser at the West Adams home of oilman Chester Wallace Brown. Money was being raised for a new and larger “Ebell Rest Cottage” (the cottage would go on to be designed by architect Julia Morgan according to the Ebell Club website). The hot dog stand was under the care of Mrs. C.R. Luton (Mr. Luton was the president of Tip Top Oil Company). The event raised $8000 (approximately $114,000 today). Perhaps sponsors of tonier events appreciated the frugality of the hand-held delicacy but more likely, everyone loved hot dogs.

Movie people and businessmen were both fans of frankfurters. A functioning hot-dog wagon had a bit part in a 1919 film starring J. Warren Kerrigan and directed by Ernest C. Warde. The smells from the cart teased the 200+ hungry extras to the point that they stormed the cart and divvied up the fifty-ish hot dogs it held. The following year the Los Angeles Times ran a photo essay on titled, “Many men of many minds eat lunch in different ways. How do you eat yours? At the Alexandria [Hotel] or at a hot dog wagon the street?” The caption for the wagon reads: ‘Hot Dogs are always popular and help keep down old H.C.L’ (assuming that means high cost of living). In a city filled with quick lunch options, such as dairy lunch spots and cafeterias, the hot dog part was even quicker.

Early southern California fraternal orders realized the power of the hot dog too. The Los Angeles Elks held a “Country Fair” in April 1900, throwing open the doors to the Elks Hall on South Spring. Three popular food booths were described by the Times—one had wiener wurst, pickles and horseradish “for those inclined to German diet”; one booth served tamales “where the desire for food of the Spanish order could be satisfied”; there was also a Country Kitchen that served up coffee and donuts, milk and gingerbread, or sandwiches and root beer. Events such as the Country Fair generated goodwill and helped the Elks grow their organization.

Of course kids loved them!

The frankfurter devotion of one young lad cannot go unmentioned. In July 1926, ten year old Sidney Chupack was thoroughly engrossed in the consumption of his hot dog while standing on the Union Pacific tracks near Pasadena Avenue and Arroyo Glen. That’s where he was picked up by the cowcatcher of (I’m assuming) slow moving train and deposited 100 feet from his original location. He was still holding his hot dog at the end of the unexpected ride and walked away with just a small scratch on his elbow.

In 1916 there are instances of hot dog vendors being banned from selling their products near some Los Angeles high school campuses. In the case of Polytechnic High School, the Board of Education was shown what the profit margin would be if they began selling hot dogs in the Polytechnic cafeteria (it would cost them 1.33 cents to prepare and would retail for 5 cents). A ban was quickly ordered on hot dog vendors on that campus and I’m assuming the cafeteria began serving hot dogs themselves. In 1921, Van Nuys High School freshman hit upon the idea of selling hot dogs to boost their treasury. They netted $10.68 in profits with their first try, during a game against Lancaster.

Bill Friend, a tackle on USC’s varsity football team, put himself through college by operating a hot dog stand across from the campus’ Administrative offices. Friend had an assistant that manned the booth while he was in classes. He also had assistants who oversaw his four auto parking stands and his shoe shine stand. Mr. Friend attended high school in Phoenix, where he established a student book story that was given to the student body of Union High School before his move to USC.

College kids and hot dog entrepreneurship apparently went hand in hand in the mid-1920s. An article in the Los Angeles Times tells of an unnamed “college boy” in Zelzah (aka Northridge) who would open self-serve hot dog stands at “leading intersections” in the San Fernando Valley. The idea was that patrons would pay for a hot dog at the unmanned stand and help themselves to the “sandwiches done up in a neat package.” “From daylight to dark each day [the young man] plans to travel through the valley, replenishing “honor” stands as fast as tourists ride by and eat up the supply.” No word on how the hot dogs would be kept warm. Perhaps just by the heat in the Valley.

How were they served?

In 1923, Young’s Market advertised their store-made weiners [sic] or frankfurters were 18 cents per pound for those that wanted to cook their own at home. By 1927 Young’s was marketing their “Barkies” as a healthful foodstuff, dubbed “the aristocrat of frankfurters,” and they price had jumped to 25 cents per pound.

Cookbooks of the period merely mentioned how to cook the frankfurters. The 1936 edition of Good Cooking, acknowledged that they were “usually boiled 5 to 10 minutes, or split and broiled 7 to 10 minutes according to size, and served with mustard in a long roll.” The 1937 edition of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book takes it one step further, noting that they should be cooked until tender by steaming, boiling, or broiling. They include a recipe for an ersatz SOS, stating that the cooked frankfurters could be “sliced and combined with a generous amount of well-seasoned white sauce and served on toast.”

Despite the ease of preparation and the profitability of frankfurters, few Los Angeles restaurateurs served frankfurters. Even modest restaurants chose to serve cheese sandwiches or peanut butter sandwiches as their easy to prepare, low-cost dining option. Notable exceptions included the Hofbrau Garden, a German restaurant that morphed into a Swiss-American restaurant during WWII, which served imported frankfurters with hot potato salad and sauerkraut.


Bradley's 5 and 10 served their hot dog with a pot of beans.

The Nut Kettle on the Sunset Strip served "Barkies" in addition to their famed nutburger, which according to a hand-written note was a small amount of chopped nuts on a normal hamburger. Harry Carpenter's Drive-In, Sunset Bowling Center, and Globe Coffee Shop served hot dogs on buns, and Eddie Brandstatter's short-lived Bohemia Grill on Vine served a "Chicago Frankfurter."

In 1924, the Los Angeles Times notes that visitors to Venice (CA) consume 3.5 tons of hot dogs weekly. Carts had been supplanted by hot dog “palaces,” which numbered more than fifty and many seated more than 300 people. The Times describes the dogs as cooked on a griddle. They were served with mustard, two slices of pickle, a crisp piece of lettuce, and delivered on a napkin. Their fans included clerks, schoolboys, bankers and motion-picture celebrities.

Just as elsewhere across the country during the early twentieth century, hot dogs were enjoyed by young and old, rich and poor. In the number of establishments and visitors, the popularity of a year-round seaside hot dog rivaled Coney Island. A uniquely southern California twist on frankfurter lore is the fact that, even before Pink’s hit the scene, hot dogs helped fund the Hollywood Bowl, and retirement accommodations for society women, and motion picture veterans. Hooray for Hollywood hot dogs!


SOURCES: Los Angeles Times, Van Nuys News, Ontario Daily Report (thanks to Kelly Zackmann), Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection, and USC Digital Library. All menus and cookbooks from author’s collection.

What Went Before? 2312 W. 7th Street

Before Wilshire Boulevard cut through Westlake Park (now named MacArthur Park) in 1934, Seventh Street facing Westlake was a shopping and dining destination for the inhabitants and tourists of Los Angeles. I have been fascinated with Seventh Street for years and am always on the lookout for postcards, matchbooks, and other paper ephemera that have a Seventh Street address. It was one postcard in particular that set me on the path to find out what establishments had occupied 2312 W. Seventh during the years it stood.

The building, which occupied the southeast corner of Seventh and Grand View, was designed by Morgan, Walls & Morgan and, according to the Los Angeles Times, was slated to be completed in November 1922. In 1923, the dining and dancing establishment Richelieu Café opened its doors at 2312 W. Seventh. The décor, carpets, tapestries, tables and chairs for the café were installed at a cost of $27,834 (almost $388,000 in 2015 dollars). Problems set in quickly. In order for the restaurant to allow dancing they needed a dance hall permit, and the entity governing such things (Board of Police Commissioners) dragged their heels. Without a dancing permit, the cafe's owner Maurice Weiner was unable to operate the cafe at a profit and was forced to close the cafe for several months. It was costing him almost $1000 each month it remained closed - $750 for rent and $200 to employ watchmen to safeguard the building.

Fast forward to February 1925, the location changed owners and was opened by Harry M. Miller (former maitre'd at Brandstatter's Montmartre Cafe) as Miller’s Cafe Lafayette. Even though it was a new building, an additional $50,000 (a little over $600,000 in today's money) was spent in decorating and furnishing the new cafe. Cafe Lafayette was an early adopter of valet parking. According to the Los Angeles Times, guests could park at the entrance where a uniformed chauffeur would whisk it away to a parking lot behind the building. Guests sent their car number to the door when they were ready to leave and the valet would have the car “warmed up and ready for the road” by the time they exited the building.

The large sums of money spent on decorating appeared to be well spent. According to the Los Angeles Times, in the first 8 months after its debut/opening, Miller's Cafe Lafayette had been used as a restaurant/club location twelve times by five different motion picture companies. Cafe Lafayette passed for locations in Paris, New York, Vienna and San Francisco. One juicy tidbit in the Times in 1927 describes Miller as such a movie fan that he has his own camera and projector and invites “the artists” that visit Café Lafayette to pose in Westlake Park for his own personal collection of photos. If that is true, it would be great to find those photos today!

Harry Miller picked up many ideas working for Eddie Brandstatter, one of Los Angeles’ most publicity minded restaurateurs. Miller’s Café Lafayette similarly named dishes after studios and movie stars to garner their business (‘Chicken Sauté, Paramount’ and ‘Filet Mignon, Gloria Swanson’), plus it featured the noontime dansant, and catered to the college crowd with dance contests and trophies. At Halloween, cinema stars were urged to submit their best recipe for pumpkin pie with the winning entry being added to the menu. However, there was one event that even Eddie Brandstatter had not attempted. In May 1925 Miller sponsored a ten-day California Valencia Orange Show that persuaded California cafes to feature Valencia oranges in their dishes (sauces, cocktails, sherbets, jellies, marmalades, salads and drinks). Throughout 1925 news of Miller’s Seventh St. café was rarely out of the “News of the Cafes” column in the Los Angeles Times for more than a couple of days in a row. Additionally, Café Lafayette was one of nine restaurants, alongside the popular Montmartre and Paris Inn, that served as a Yellow Cab station.

Miller’s hospitality/stewardship also extended to his staff. He offered one hour of study each morning with roundtable discussions, lectures and demonstrations on methods employed by the famous maitre'ds of Europe. By June 1925 he was outfitting his waiters with a summer wardrobe - black silk suits embroidered in gold with the official crest of the Cafe Lafayette.

Whether to compare to, or learn the successful strategies of, Harry Miller soon embarked on a tour through the cafes and cabarets on the East Coast. When he returned he told everyone that would listen (i.e. the press) that New York cafes were 'gougers' and that typical cover charges in New York and Chicago ranged in price from $2 to $10 per person, as opposed to 50 cents to $2 per person in Los Angeles.

Clubs, cafes, and restaurants that kept their customers entertained made the most money. Music and dancing assured they would stick around post-meal. The Café Lafayette hosted a long succession of great dance bands. Formerly with the Biltmore, Roy Fox and his Orchestra played Harry Miller’s well-publicized opening night. Fox was a composer as well as a conductor. According to a May 25, 1927 blurb in the Los Angeles Times, Fox visited the “Indian Village in Hollywood” as inspiration for creating novelty fox trots for Café Lafayette. Two days later an article titled “Indians’ Music Provides Ideas for Composers” shows up in the Times. The article, which goes into detail about Sid Grauman’s Indian village on Hollywood Boulevard near Highland, and Shave Head, the Shoshone warrior “genius of the baton who sets the tempo for the great four-man Shoshone war drum.” Miller must have appreciated that Grauman was not one to miss an opportunity for publicity.

A quick glance at the early twentieth century dining and dancing ads show a thirst for novelty and the rapid succession of entertainers through the venues. Harry Owens obituary notes that it was at the Café Lafayette that Owens was heard performing “Aloha Oe” which garnered him a position as the leader of the Royal Hawaiians orchestra in Waikiki and led to his “Hawaii Calls” broadcasts. It is noted in the Times in March 1926 that Harry Miller consented to allow Harry Owens and the Lafayette orchestra to use the restaurant, between luncheon and evening dance concerts, to ‘make trial records for a nationally known concern.’

Soon cabaret star Jane Green was providing entertainment, followed in early May ‘after a lively exchange of telegrams’ by Henry Halstead. [Albert Haim posted a great photo documenting this engagement at his Bixography Discussion Group] In June 1926 when Halstead wanted out of his Café Lafayette contract in order to play the Edgewater Beach Club in Santa Monica, Miller advertised it to his own advantage. It was noted in the Times that it was ‘through the courtesy of Harry Miller’ that Halstead would be allowed to play the Edgewater Club. Perhaps Miller aspired to join the impressive list of those that could enjoy club life, and its private beach, for a base membership rate of $400. Ray West became the leader of the Lafayette orchestra in May 1927. The Times mentions that his vibraphonist Manilla Le Mori, “the jada girl,” with “her exotic hair bob” would appear in a ladies’ tuxedo. Keep in mind the sensation Dietrich caused more than two years later by wearing a tuxedo in the film “Morocco.”

Mentions of Miller’s Café Lafayette become fewer and farther apart until July 1929 when another former Montmartre maitre’d, Paul Perrot, takes over the location. (Just prior to the takeover Perrot had partnered with fellow restaurateurs Nick Krause and Bob Cobb to open the Nikabob Cafe.)

Renamed Paul Perrot’s Café in August 1929, Perrot follows the established musical mold and installs the Laughner-Harris band (Carroll Laughner and Phil Harris), and adds fashion shows and bridge luncheons with dancing. Luckily Dick Whittington captured the Paul Perrot Café during its short life. Advertisements for New Years Eve at Paul Perrot’s Café do not mention it is closing.

Beginning in January 1930 Ray West takes over, renames it the Ray West Café, but he too left for good in June 1930.

The location set vacant for more than a year before restaurateur Carl Jahnke signed a five-year lease and opened the new Jahnke’s Tavern in September 1931.

Jahnke hired Chris Schonberg and his orchestra to fill “the largest café dance floor in the city.” For the next two months the “News of the Cafes” column in the Times reminds potential patrons of Jahnke’s Tavern that their food is good, the music is “snappy,” there is ample free parking, and never a cover charge. Right before Thanksgiving, Jahnke reminds vegetarians that fresh vegetables can be substituted for meat dishes, and Glenn Edmunds and his Collegiate Orchestra begin an engagement. An ad for New Years Eve 1931 is the last mention of Jahnke’s Tavern.

Café De Paree opens in October 1932. Orchestras change even faster at Café De Paree. Chico de Verdi and his orchestra followed by Orville Knapp from New York, Ray West (!) and his Café de Paree orchestra take over in mid-1933, and Giggie Royse and orchestra take over in September 1933. Manager Pete Dokos announces Eugene Stark (formerly of the Roosevelt Hotel’s Blossom Room) will be in charge of the cuisine. Joe Pirrone is the associate manager. Another announcement says Dokos ‘toured the continent’ for several months in early 1935, presumably gathering successful practices of similar establishments abroad.

The location served again as a backdrop for motion pictures. This time it was featured prominently in the 1935 film “Skybound.” Approximately the first ten minutes of the movie takes place in the Café De Paree and shows the dance floor, orchestra (not sure which), hat check area, and bar area.

The fee received as a filming location may have convinced Dokos that the time was right to build an extension. In August 1935, the neon-lit Club De Paree “one of the largest and most beautiful bars on the coast” joined the café and welcomed “registered members and guests only.” By December 1935 “drop-ins” are now invited to enjoy the “cozy corners” of the new bar area. Fast forward to October 1937 when the short-lived “The Drunkard’s Child” opens (perhaps a companion piece to the popular “Drunkard” show that played for years at the Theatre Mart?).

Orchestras and dancing do return by late October 1937. They make it through the obligatory New Years Eve celebration and by April 1938 are featuring the Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton.

New (unnamed) management takes over in October 1938 and implements a “sparkling French revue” with can-can dancers and “swinging hulu [sic] girls.” The Café De Paree limps along through the first week of 1939 before the location opens as the New Lakeshore Café (alternately listed as the New Lake Shore Café) in February 1939 featuring the American debut of Bob Belasco and his West London Orchestra. The location sees one more New Years Eve before that café is gone as well.

Before being demolished in the late 1980s the building, which housed the addresses 2300-2316 W. Seventh, held the longtime central office of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The MacArthur Park Primary Center School now occupies the land that once held a long succession of beautiful dining and dancing spots in the 1920s and 1930s.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Inside Facts of Stage and Screen, Hollywood Vagabond, Los Angeles city directories, and City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. Music from some of the orchestras mentioned can be heard on You Tube.

To Live and Dine in L.A. - More than an exhibit to many Angelenos

We were lucky enough to make it to the To Live and Dine in L.A. exhibit during the week. It was relatively quiet (except for the piped in restaurant/diner/cafeteria/lunch counter din) so we were able to spend time taking it all in. The exhibit has been written up numerous places online so I'll spare you the blow by blow. Just go and check it out for yourself, before it ends in November.

And read the book. I'm enjoying the book and it has pushed me to revisit half-baked/half-written/half-thought out ideas that have been laying around for years waiting for the time to polish them and post them on Hollywood Gastronomical Haunts. Life is too short to polish everything, so I'll be posting a few of "those" things over the summer.

One thing I have enjoyed about the To Live and Dine in L.A. project is the way it melds three of my favorite things: Los Angeles, the city's restaurant history, and libraries. Most importantly Los Angeles Public Library is held up as both a repository of awesome things (i.e. menus) and as an organization that is creating a dialogue about food inequality and offering places to get information. In addition to some events at the branches and Library Foundation events that 'sell out quickly,' there are links to community based food organizations in Los Angeles and great essays from Culinary Historians of Southern California president Charles Perry and Los Angeles Food Policy Council's Alexa Delwiche. It is difficult to find if you don't know what to Google but THIS IS THE WEBSITE you want if you are looking for food resources in Los Angeles.


Its only one of the many website tie-ins from both LAPL and the Library Foundation.

A sad year-end for many historic Los Angeles restaurants

The end of 2012 sees the closures of Junior's Deli in Westwood, Sierra's restaurant in Canoga Park, and possibly Henry's Tacos in North Hollywood.

The White Horse Inn on Roscoe, which sat empty for over a decade, was torn down recently.

Downtown's Grand Central Market has an appointment for an 'upscale makeover' according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles Times also reports the 80+ year old Canter's Deli recently received a makeover of their menu options.

Happy 65th birthday Langers!

Wonder what the line is going to be like for free sandwiches on June 15 & 16?

R.I.P. - Milton Weiss 1918-2012

I was sorry to read about the passing of Milton Weiss, restaurateur and son of the venerable Mama Weiss. I recently read his 2001 book titled, Star Grazing in Hollywood: A Reminiscence of a Beverly Hills Restaurateur about the restaurants he owned, and growing up in Mama Weiss' restaurants. This entertaining read can be found at the Beverly Hills Library (call number 647.9579 Weiss). Mama Weiss' Csarda restaurant was the restaurant celebrities came to for the food,the atmosphere and Mama Weiss' hospitality. One guidebook, Key, dated August 31-September 7, 1950, praises 'Mama's superb borscht, blintzes and cherry strudel' and notes that gypsy music 'adds to the pleasure of dinner by candlelight.' Mama Weiss charmed television audiences in the 1950s with a cooking show on KHJ before branching out with her own product line. A coupon in the Los Angeles Times from March 19, 1959 touts 6 cents off Mama Weiss' roquefort dressing, bleu cheese dressing or horseradish sauce, available 'at food stores everywhere'.

Preserve Los Angeles restaurants!

This week is Preservation Week. With various events nationwide, the American Library Association and partners such as the Library of Congress, are hoping to shed light on the importance of preservation (see the Preservation Week website for more info). Reading the Preservation Week materials it got me thinking about doing what I could by patronizing my favorite restaurants that have stood the test of time.

I've written about it before but the Safari Room never disappoints. It's definitely on my calendar for this week.

Clifton's Brookdale original facade unveiled

KCET's LA as Subject blog did a great write up on today's unveiling of Clifton's Brookdale cafeteria original facade. Can't wait for it to re-open!

UPDATED - The Los Angeles Times had the story this morning as well. Check it out on their website, and have fun with the slider before and after photos!