"Friends of friends, on holiday, invited us to their Thanksgiving dinner — turkey with all the trimmings, sweet potatoes, pecan pie and ice cream. In thanking them, I said something about the pleasure of such generosity, family closeness and their children’s politeness. Our host laughed. It’s because we’re from the South, she said. It wouldn’t be the same in Chicago. Perhaps for the next road trip, I’ll take a northern route to see if that’s true...."
Has anyone ever really gotten all the trimmings?
Imagine coming back to the United States, after seeing "The South" in the form of one family's Thanksgiving, wanting to check out "The North," and figuring that the ways of the American North are best discerned in Chicago.
ADDED: The word "trimmings" — meaning the usual accompaniments — is interesting enough that I consulted the OED. I wanted to share some of the quotes I found there:
1927 D. Parker in New Yorker 29 Oct. 93/1 He was praised, adored, analyzed, bestsold, argued about, and banned in Boston; all the trimmings were accorded him.
1946 M. Dickens Happy Prisoner ix. 195 If he..had to start his illness all over again, with transfusions and penicillin and all the trimmings, it would be their fault....
1984 Times 6 Apr. 21/2 Next week he unveils his..personal computer which is said to have all the trimmings but with a no-frills price.
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A nice New England Thanksgiving in the backwoods of New Hampshire ought to do it...
Chicago is unsafe.
Waiters congratulate on choices because it results in more generous tipping. Female waitresses can also put a smiley face or hearts on the receipt to increase tipping, but it doesn't work for males.
We'll have to wait for data about transgendered staff tipping strategies...Dylan, Dylan, Dylan?
It is unusual American waiters complement your order, until you understand they are trained to constantly upsell. My son worked for years as a waiter in NYC. Most of his income came from tips, of course, which was reason enough to give positive reinforcement as people ordered, but the owner also encouraged and rewarded upselling in other ways, too. Those who were best at selling appetizers, sides, drinks and desserts in addition to entrees were given the best shifts. Only the strongest upsellers worked on Friday and Saturday nights. Once he got good at it, my son made hundreds more a week. That's why you get an "Awesome!" when you want fries with that.
Years ago, I read an article in the L . A. Times in which the author asserted that the Thanksgiving trimmings would pinpoint exactly the geographic location of the meal…corn casserole, oyster stuffing, pecan pie, whatever. Honestly, I wish I could remember the details.
Hearing a waiter say "Good choice" when I order always makes me wonder "You mean there are bad choices on the menu?"
I also don't like waiters who say "..and how are the first few bites tasting" -- because I'm the one doing the tasting.
I don't eat out much.
I love that she noted being congratulated for her smart sense and good taste for going with the 'truffled fries' or whatever it was she ordered. It doesn't matter. I don't know when that became the natural language of servers, but it's all over. It's the same sort of compliment you get, unsolicited, from the Trader Joe's cashier who gives you high praises for searching out and grabbing the frozen Chicken Samosas. "Oh...I just love these. I cannot stop eating these." I always feel so validated hearing it from my cashier.
Yes, Southern people are more hospitable. That doesn't mean there aren't nice people up north. But there is something to Southern hospitality that's another level. Up north we just scowl (I say 'we' as I grew up there). Down here, we greet all warmly. I've lived around both. Its real down here. Which may be one reason more and more people are moving here. But as they do, as they move from Michigan & Illinois, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, the hospitality levels will drop. It's going to happen. You cannot replace Carolinians and Georgians with New Jerseyites and not change. We'll get better hoagies and bagels, but less hospitality.
Has anyone ever really gotten all the trimmings?
That was moms goal when she was motivated to go all out. All the trimmings for "THAT" meal.
It could even be dinner(noon meal) in the middle of the week.
A meat,or two. potatoes, gravy, vegetables, fresh baked homemade bread. Assortment of condiments.Two desert options, plus Ice cream, homemade, and whipped cream. (she did whip her own sometimes), selection of fruit.
Table cloth and cloth napkins, good silver, and steak knives, stem ware, crystal water glasses, brewed iced tea with fresh lemon.
Snobs and nobs.
Houston, a city of immigrants from within the US and from the rest of the world, has some pretty good restaurants. I'd bet the back of the house at the NASA cafe speaks very little English during their workday.
remember what JFK said about Washington DC.
A town of Southern efficiency and Northern hospitality
Thanksgiving in Chicago always begins with the traditional West Side mass shooting......then we eat!
Then "all the trimmings" seems to mean something like "a lot of bells and whistles".
Growing up, my mother and grandmothers used the word "trimmings" both in the context of "all the trimmings" as in a Christmas feast with all the trimmings, and also in the context of what happens when you are sewing a garment. You cut the fabric and bits and pieces are left over. Those are the trimmings. You don't care about them, except for any that are large enough to throw into your basket of fabrics you might one day use to make a patchwork quilt.
And you don't have to shit into a vacuum cleaner.
Really. It has been over a decade since I ate at either JSC cafeteria, but the food was nothing to write about. Most people gladly left campus to eat at one of the various eateries in the Clear Lake area. It was even a bit humorous to eat at the building 3 cafeteria, where if you spent a few extra bucks at Space Center Houston, they would bus tourist over to possibly eat with astronauts. Mostly it was engineers and admins. The sandwich area was very popular, but hamburgers were even more popular. Space Center Houston had a much better cafeteria.
Why would Chicago be different? Southern notions of superiority.
(1) Waiters are tip-hungry and operate in a Darwinian arena. Their giving verbal caresses to patrons is almost costless and failing to do so could be expensive, so of course they do it.
(2) Similar grooming occurs with sales and support staff who respond to everything you say (e.g. your credit card info) with a string of meaningless “perfect’s” or (Brit version) “brilliant’s”.
(3) My personal gripe is “No problem” instead of “you’re welcome” when I thank somebody for helping me in some transaction. “You’re welcome” means “I acknowledge your statement appreciating what I did for you, and in turn I thank you for it. We are now square.” Whereas “No problem” means “It was nothing, you are nothing, we’re done, nothing happened here.”
Pet peeve of mine. I don’t care about waiters approval of choices and am particularly annoyed when they tell me x is their favorite. I do not give a shit about their tastes the best dining experiences are in restaurants where the wait staff is male and attired in white jackets. They are pros and this is a job , a career, they are proud of. They are not aspiring actors or dancers or painters or poets a cohort likely to share their preferences
Don't the Brits cheer each other on by saying "brilliant"? You tied not just one shoe, but both? Brilliant! Kind of like the American or Matthew McConaughey "cool"--that's cool man, real cool. Do the Brits not say "awesome"? I first heard the word used to mean OK, not bad, somewhat of a pleasant surprise, maybe late 1990s from the woman who is now my ex-sister-in-law--a bit younger than me.
I just re-read Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, and she goes into "nice"; a few years earlier it referred to showing good or careful or educated taste--nice judgement, arranging things in a nice or tasteful way. Almost overnight it became the case that almost everyone, and everything they did, was nice. I guess it's very democratic, cheering everyone on, congratulating them for more or less nothing.
There are some other annoying habits of many American waiters that one rarely finds anywhere else, or at least in the 60+ countries through which I have traveled. The most annoying to me is the continual interruption to ask if everything is "okay." Why on earth would I not let the waiter know if everything is not okay, and what is likely to have changed in the five minutes since he last interrupted the table's conversation with such a redundant question? It's almost as if waiters think the more face time they get at the table correlates directly with the customer's perceived level of service, hence the likely tip. The second most annoying to me is the waiter leaving the check at the table before the meal is complete and saying "no hurry, but I'll just leave this here for when you're ready." He might as well announce "I need you to finish up and vacate the premises so I can turn the table."
I was in a London pharmacy in 2015. The check out clerk asked how I was paying, and I told her I'd use a credit card. "Brilliant," she replied.
Behind the NYT paywall.
Here's the same story for free in the Telegraph.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/prue-leiths-american-road-trip-loved-texas-maybe-south-african/
Like Pavlov's dog, your waiter will reward you if you make a "good choice". Aarrgh!!!
I don't much care what the average American waiter thinks about my food choice. OTOH in Italy I've watched waiters manipulate me towards what they thought was the best dish in the house. And they were usually right. But then they were people who'd made a lifetime profession of being a waiter---not a wannabe actor hoping to get an acting gig.
Pet peeve of mine. I don’t care about waiters approval of choices and am particularly annoyed when they tell me x is their favorite. I do not give a shit about their tastes the best dining experiences are in restaurants where the wait staff is male and attired in white jackets. They are pros and this is a job , a career, they are proud of. They are not aspiring actors or dancers or painters or poets a cohort likely to share their preferences
"Good choice" must have been from an upscale restaurant (2 words). I get "awesome" a lot, but moreoften I get "perfect", spoken with the second syllable trailing off in droll-like sarcasm. This is interpreted to mean "I'm probably gonna quit in about 10 minutes."
When I read “with all the trimmings”, I understand it to be various sides available, not that one has to take them all or they encompass all that is possible.
Classic sales technique. Compliment the customer in any way possible. Make them feel good. Get them to spend more- and for waiters= tip more.
And Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie is unthinkable. Pecan pie if your crowd likes it, but I suspect apple pie, particularly Dutch Apple, appears on more tables then pecan pie, and pumpkin pie rules the roost.
"We were also puzzled by the way American waiters routinely congratulate you on your menu choice, rewarding you with 'Good choice,' 'Excellent' or even 'Awesome.' "
It's always struck me as odd, too. The implication is that there's something wrong with the other items on the menu.
Trimmings? I like L'Trimm. You know, Tigre and Bunny. The chicks who like the cars that go boom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fMERyRz498
A British pastime is marveling at how the rest of the world does things wrong or awfully. Especially Americans.
"Has anyone ever really gotten all the trimmings?"
No, but I once got 87% of the trimmings and was pretty proud of myself.
A dinner with all the trimmings, be it steak, pork, turkey, what-have-you, is an impossibility, as no one can even name all the trimmings let alone obtain them.
All the trimmings is an extreme case of all the way. There's a hamburger bistro in my town that serves a number of frankfurters and other sausages dressed "all the way" as a menu option. What you get is a chaotic pile of stuff with a hotdog in a bun buried somewhere underneath the daunting heap of chili, beans, chopped cabbage, relish, cheese, and condiments, together with bits of unidentifiable material, presumably edible.
The only way to eat this "frankfurter all the way" is with a full set of table cutlery -- knife, fork, spoon, and maybe a few other utensils -- chopsticks, for example. All the way counters and negates the entire hotdog concept, i.e. a hot food that can be managed one-handed while the other hand manages a beverage container. To lift one of these monstrosities to your mouth is to initiate an explosion of food and food-like substances all over your face and clothes. A hotdog all the way is not only a navigation hazard, but it may also be a fraud as well. There's always at least one missing element.
"We were also puzzled by the way American waiters routinely congratulate you on your menu choice..." She seems easily amused / bemused. It's just a verbal tic to encourage you to continue on to the next item on your order. I have to smile when the server peeps out "Perfect!" though. At least I feel I'll get a passing grade.
Ah yes, the much vaunted "Southern hospitality." Rendered as "Southern charm," it was the basis of JFK's famous complaint that Washington DC combined "Southern efficiency and Northern charm."
"perfect"
How to express in one word your feelings when people who control your life for thirty seconds do exactly what you have anticipated so you can move on. I don't ever hear this when I'm cranky to people.
"the ways of the American North are best discerned in Chicago."
They probably are.
Blah, blah, blah, old chap.
I thought Kennedy called DC a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" -- or am I confusing him with someone else?
Agree with Madison Man at 9:09: we don't need to be congratulated on what we order, as if there are bad choices on the menu. On the other hand, we have a family member who typically asks the server something along the lines of:'What's good? What would you order? What's your favorite thing on the menu?' The conversation is usually amusing.
By the way, we really like Prue Leith.
Owen,
"No problem" really chafes me too, but you're committing the etymological fallacy by reading all that significance into "you're welcome". In reality these are just stock, standard phrases, and the real issue isn't that the one uttering "no problem" isn't full of heartfelt gratitude like the person who says "you're welcome", it's that the latter is in a formal, polite register, whereas "no problem" is egregiously informal.
The Brits, despite their pretentious belief in their manners, do not understand common courtesy.
That said, it's pretty easy to tell the bs flattering from honest chatter.
I thought Kennedy called DC a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" -- or am I confusing him with someone else?
Down here (smaller town) "all the trimmings" just means you've sampled everything.
Also down here you'll get pleasant chatter or left alone unless you ask for a recommendation.
Then again, down here we don't have restaurants that serve two emaciated lamb ribs, three slivers of carrot and one melon ball worth of pureed turnip and call it a meal.
A business acquaintance up north took me out once and that was literally the "meal". I displayed my pique by eating the meal in three bites (both ribs at once).
Thirty-seven years ago when I worked as a waiter, a then-trendy request for pineapple on pizza (Hawaiian pizza) elicited a scowl and a raised eyebrow. Of course, I would say "Yes, ma'am/sir" and take the order because the customer is always right. But I knew not to look at the cooks when picking the order up because they would give me the same scowl & eyebrow look that said "Whaddya doin' takin' an order for pineapple on pizza, kid?"
After a week in the dining room I went back to delivery where I didn't have to look too closely at the toppings/fillings on the order.
Don't get me started on the St Patrick's Day monstrosity of potato chunks on pizza...
Jack Schlossberg really doesn't like restaurants, according to the article in the Daily Mail. I don't know if he goes on about waiters' nonsense or not.
I beg your pardon! I hadn't scrolled down far enough to see you had already noted the Schlossberg video. No excuse for it, really, because the first thing that came into my head as I began the DM article was, 'this is has Althouse's name all over it'.
Some Texans I follow online who like German cooking (I'm indifferent) also say that Fredericksburg has been tourist-trapped into culinary mediocrity. But the only place I go when passing through is the Java Ranch, where you can also buy party lights made from shotgun shells.
Kirk Parker @ 7:08: Fair point about my "over-reading" of a stock phrase like "thank you" or "you're welcome." In my defense I would say only, the little things matter, the old habits die hard (and often we can be glad they are so hard to kill), and a little social grease goes a long way to keeping us from each other's throats. I don't think I'm a stickler on etiquette but I try to mean it when I say "thanks" to whomever opened the door or packed my groceries or brought my dinner. At least in theory it's an open moment when two humans can add a little value.
/rant
For years I have forbidden my staff from uttering the phrase, "No problem." One server told me I was incorrect in my thinking, "Why should it be a problem (e.g. ordering a refill for my soda.)?" and supposed it was an "age thing". Perhaps. But my restaurant, my rules.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
I once denied a tip to a waitress who kept referring to me as honey and darling. If it was someone old enough to be my mother it could be excused as maternal and tolerated, but she was younger,and I felt like she was feigning attraction to me so I would be generous. It had the opposite effect. Just be professional!
"Don't the Brits cheer each other on by saying "brilliant"?
Yes, although 'brilliant' can have more than one connotation depending on context. I have been at restaurants in England where the waitstaff said, "brilliant" in response to every person's order, as one might otherwise say, "Got it" or "Okay, next."
I can't imagine Prue has never experienced the same.
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