On page and screen, few settings carry the cultural weight of the humble American diner. Inviting us with sleek chrome and flashing neon lights, diners are calmly seduced. It appeals to our baser impulses with oversized portions of high-cholesterol breakfasts and pies, wins us over with chatty waitresses and classic jukebox Carmen, and reminds us, in a fundamental and incomprehensible way, that America What itself is not always what it seems.
The dining car is where Pumpkin and Honey Bunny move around in Pulp Fiction; where Tony sits for his last meal as a Soprano; where adrift American graffiti youths gather to discuss their futures; where There Danny and Sandy's date collapses in Grease. The restaurant is filled with works by writers like Jack Kerouac and James Ellroy. In Twin Peaks, David Lynch's otherworldly Washington state setting, Double R is a mainstay of the community. 'KDSP' actress Lara Flynn Boyle, who played Donna Hayward on 'Twin Peaks' in the '90s, says she Once waited tables by myself at Ann Sather's restaurant in my hometown of Chicago (the cinnamon rolls were legendary). Most of all, Boyle loved the casual camaraderie at the dinner table. "It doesn't get any better than this! It's a dying art form," she says, a hint of longing in her voice. "It's so lovely. In Boyle's opinion, half the fun is having conversations with strangers on the wall, which is increasingly rare in the age of smartphones. "You meet the most delicious people," she said. "It's so Bravo. Diners are my life.
Why do cheap food, long hours, counters, and stalls always capture the American imagination? Putting a finger on it isn't meant to be a feat, but opening up the history crowded within the restaurant's walls seems like a good start.
The name "diner" first refers to the train cars in which passengers gorged themselves (pare "sleeps"). Later, it was applied to the crude restaurants that served factory workers in late 19th-century American industry. In fact, in many cases these facilities are converted boxcars placed outside blue-collar workplaces to feed late-night crowds with little regard for nutrition or etiquette.
Food critic and food truck enthusiast Michael Stern, co-author (with his wife Jane) of the Roadfood book series, recounts the transformation of the 1920s, Diners go through this as legions of young, fashionable women head out of town, looking for a good time and not afraid of emptying their wallets.
"That's when a lot of diners are scrambling," Stern said. "They want to make the ladies happy." They have indoor bathrooms and booths so you don't have to sit at the counter. "This meant that women didn't have to rub elbows with stinky and questionable men, and from that point on Diners would become a viable date night spot (despite the misfortunes that befell Danny and Sandy).
Many of these diners are mass-produced in factories in the heart of the East Coast, each a copy of the other. They have the same silver exterior, the same open kitchen, the same cramped rooms. Departing from their factory, the food trucks are driven across the country, and their rectangular RV-like structures allow them to be transported via flatbed trucks. For larger diners, the buildings are often shipped in two pieces to their destination and reassembled on site. Assembled.
Despite the rebranding campaign, Stern noted that early films depicted diners as a dangerous, unpredictable place with a mix of reckless characters and violence. Easily explosive. In the 1941 Preston Sturges Odyssey film Sullivan's Travels, a Hollywood director goes out of his way to mingle with civilians gathered in a town restaurant. In Stern's view, such an excursion was, and in some cases still is, considered a "walk in the cultural wilderness" when he created a larger than life duo on "Twin Peaks" While in the restaurant, the town's dead mass after Laura Palmer's death was looking for answers, exchanging words, and ordering huge amounts of fort food.
"What David said was. , even though you are different, you walk into the coffee shop and sit at the counter, you are all the same person. And then, once you walk out the door, who knows what will happen? "For Lynch, the double room was a haven from the churning darkness of the city, a benevolent refuge that bridged differences," Boyle said. “That’s really what diners are for.
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