The taste of summer

Professor Hsu's article last week marked an important shift in our class in a couple of ways, especially in terms of food as a part of personal identity and cultural practices.  But for me, I really connected to this paper because of its focus on the food service industry.  Growing up on Cape Cod, I've been surrounded by restaurant culture my whole life.  My parents owned a restaurant when I was little and for the past three summers I’ve worked as a waitress at a beachfront bar and restaurant.  These experiences have really made me think about why we go to restaurants and how we act while we're there.

On the most basic level, restaurants are social.  They offer a public space to define our relationships: is it a family outing? …a date? …a class reunion?  Of course restaurants are often used to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and so on, but since Cape Cod is a tourist destination, mostly my tables are just people on vacation, commemorating their time together by eating and drinking (a lot).  For many, coming to the restaurant is a celebration in itself: it is the surest sign that summer has arrived.

People also come to the restaurant for a taste of our local specialties.  Tourists on Cape Cod want steamed clams, fried scallops and lobster rolls: this is exactly what they get.  Of course, since I'm a local, I almost never eat these things, unless we have visiting friends in town.  With lobster rolls at $20 a pop, it's really more of a touristic luxury, but I don't tell them that.  When my customers invariably ask me where I'm from and they find out that I was born and raised on Cape Cod, their eyes light up.  They ask me for advice on how to eat their steamed clams, or how to crack their lobsters, even though I barely know, myself.  Sometimes I feel like a "bad Cape Codder" because I know less about it than my own customers.  Then I see them run off to the raw bar to get oysters on the half shell, which apparently are really good (Wellfleet oysters, anyone?).  But honestly, I've lived my whole life on Cape Cod and I still think they're pretty gross.  (Maybe if I could only get them once a year I'd like them more, too...)

This brings me to my next point: lobsters.  Even though we aren't in Maine, lobsters are yet another touristy “must eat” for any trip to Cape Cod.  I do like lobster meat, especially when my dad's lobstermen friends give us extras, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it.  As a waitress, I've come to see lobster as popular for two reasons: the "experience" of taking it apart (ideally while wearing a cheesy lobster bib) and the implicit indication of wealth (since one lobster dinner goes for at least $30).  I'll never forget the night I walked up to a table of two older men who had clearly taken their sons, four boys under the age of 15, for a boys' night out.  I had barely greeted the table when the men informed me that all six of them were getting full lobster dinners, without even glancing at the menu.  I'm not sure what kind of statement this table was trying to make, but it was extremely endearing to watch the older men demonstrating proper lobster claw-cracking technique to their sons.

So when I think about how food shapes my personal identity, I'm a little conflicted.  At home, I definitely eat more fish since we live so close to the ocean that it's delicious and reasonably priced.  However, I don't relate to the stereotypical Cape Cod diet of lobster, clam chowder and raw oysters.  For me, these dishes are just marketing products intended for visitors.  In a way, they actually define the identity of the tourists, not the locals.  The more I think about it, the weirder it seems, but I guess that's just the paradox of living in a tourist destination!