HOMEMADE FOOD TO GO? Paradox and Confluence at the South Side Six Characterizing the South Side 6 Food Mart Submitted by Sarah Tebbe Situated on Main Street of Bowling Green’s business district, the South Side 6, with its modest, unassuming façade, gives the appearance of being a typical college town convenience store where students and locals might pick up beer, potato chips, and other sundries. But the mart’s deceptive exterior conceals what inside is hardly a mere pit stop for bottled drinks and salty snacks but instead is a family-run kitchen serving, as its paper To-Go menu heralds, “Authentic Middle Eastern Foods and Pastry” (that I know from sampling the falafel to be quite tasty). On the night of the first interview, shortly after eight p.m., the place was bustling with activity. Expectedly, the traffic included comers and goers picking up six-packs and cigarettes; but equally interesting was the strong, visible presence of the place as a family-run establishment. Here, from a stool at the edge of the service counter, 45-year-old owner So Shaheen answered questions about the store and his own Lebanese-American foodways while his wife Amal cooked and tended the register, and their three children wiggled, played, nibbled sandwiches, and climbed about So. The kinetic activity of that night points to other ways in which the South Side Six is a locus of different bodies, identities, homes and traditions: that the Shaheen youngsters eat the very same foods customers purchase to take to their own homes; that freshly prepared Lebanese foods are sold alongside prototypically “American” processed and packaged snacks and beers; and that public and private distinctions blur are just a few reasons why I read the South Side 6 as a hub of intersecting, intermingling foodways. This “convenience” store (whose menu offerings, although quick to prepare, are hardly what one might call fast food) at first look seems to be what might be conceived as a paradox, using the term as employed by Harvey Levenstein in his book The Paradox of Plenty. For Levenstein, the socio-cultural history of American food is rife with contradiction and unhappy marriages of foods and meanings. Having stood in Bowling Green, Ohio since 1957, and remaining a cornerstone of this Midwest community, the South Side 6 is undoubtedly very American and, as such, one might guess paradoxical. Additionally for such reasons as it embraces technologies of convenience while retaining traditional preparation methods; is recognized as a local establishment but keeps culturally and geographically distant ties; is a business for-profit that claims not to cater its menu to customer tastes, initially the store seems to be wrought with disharmonious forces. But, gathering from its owner’s take on things and after having observed the place, talked, listened, eaten the food, and reflected on these, I find that the South Side Six is more accurately described as happy confluence of disparate forces. According to easy going entrepreneur So, the seeming dichotomies of such things as past/present, Lebanese/American, public/private do not represent rifts so much as they represent fluid, and for him and his family, comfortable sites of exchange. For this reason, I find Shaheem’s business to be most productively imagined as a literal and symbolic hub. Narrative Summary Born in Findlay but transplanted at age 6 to Lebanon for several years of his childhood, So recalled some of the favorite foods of his youth: ground beef cooked with cracked wheat and olive oil; a rice-and-meat dish served with pine nuts, almonds and warm yogurt. Growing up, rice was a staple accompaniment, and typical fare included meat or eggs, sometimes with vegetables in-season (such as green onions, which his family grew in a home garden) and served with some kind of salad, such as fatoush. These days, meals do not seem to him to be markedly different, except for the inclusion of some American foods, such as lasagna, pizza, hot dogs, and “burgers for the kids.” So noted: “We do eat a lot of American food. We just had french fries earlier today.” But, although he said, “We adjust to here kind of,” the majority of what he and his family eat he describes as traditionally Lebanese, prepared at home now as it was then by the women of the family, the cooking techniques handed down from generation to generation (transmitted from mother to daughter). Although the gradual incorporation by his family of what he calls “American” staples (mostly for the sake of the kids) into the meal cycle is a change from his own childhood, So repeatedly emphasized continuity rather than difference between the products of his past and present, and seeing it as a value-neutral shift. (That is to say, he does not perceive the change as negative nor does he view is as being a loss of or break from the past.) For him, his children’s taste for burgers and fries is no big deal. For example, when asked about his kids’ preferences, tastes, and choices with respect to Lebanese and American food options, So answered: “They’ve grown up with it—it’s nothing to them, actually.” Too, from his point of view, the experience his kids have had sharing Lebanese foods with friends has been positive. This exchange happens in one of two ways: when the children bring lunches to school or when the friends visit at home: “Maybe their buddies, or something—they’re going to school—bring them over to the house and eat some hommus or garlic or something like that.” Again, like this one, his responses very much reflected a sense of compatibility, not conflict, between traditional Lebanese and Northwest Ohio foods, although throughout our conversations he maintained a clear distinction between “American” and “Lebanese” foods. He gave no indication of perceiving a hybrid or hyphenated version of these. What does register in sharp contrast according to So’s observations is the difference between Lebanese and American households in terms of what he calls “hospitality.” He notices the absence of regular inclusive, communal meal sharing in non-Lebanese American homes, a practice routine to the Lebanese tradition. So explained that, “You insist that people sit down to eat when they visit. Serve coffee, fruits—the food is constantly coming. This is the most significant difference.” He remembers, of meals growing up, that partaking was not limited to immediate family but was encouraged from any people who happened in: “Yeah, family or whoever came in the house, usually. [. . .] Hospitality is different [in the U.S.]. [In Lebanon] somebody would walk in and we pretty much insist on them sitting down and eating with us. So, whoever came [would be included].” Interestingly, he described an ordinary meal in the Lebanese tradition as similar to Thanksgiving in the American tradition, the difference being that the former happens often, the latter only once a year. Welcoming outsiders into the home to share a family meal is the rule, not the exception, and So notes this as a distinguishing feature of the Arab-American communities of which he identifies himself as part. An example So offered of an occasion when a non-family or extended family member might be invited to the home to eat is when someone from Lebanon visits the states; in this case, they would be welcomed to share food. Also during our conversation, So spoke quite a bit about the difference that time makes, indicating that technological advancements and (what he sees to be) improvements in “convenience” are significant agents of change (across cultures), and this effects most directly preparation, preservation, and procurement, three elements of foodways as outlined in Lucy Long’s article, “Learning to Listen to the Food Voice: Recipes As Expressions of Identity and Carriers of Memory.” Whereas in his childhood, his family had to process ground beef with lamb fat in the summer to make it last through the cold months, and undertake the time-consuming and labor-intensive process of making bread, now he simply buys all the supplies he needs in his weekly jaunt to Detroit, where he reports there are large number of Middle Eastern and other ethnic stores. (By way of explanation, Dearborn, Michigan, he reported, boasts a large Arab community.) Even though it is a drive, he still perceives traveling to Michigan as convenient because he can get everything he needs. Asked if he felt nostalgic about the ways foods used to be prepared in his family, So admitted, “Sometimes like maybe when you—see somebody doing it that way it just brings back memories.” Yet he didn’t seem particularly sentimental or regretful about things having changed: “This is convenient; it’s all about convenience now,” a sentiment true not only for him, but also for his regulars. Downtown on Main, its very location renders it convenient, not to mention its ready-to-go foods. Lots of people—from students to townies, travelers, business people, and summer workers—stop by once, but pass through repeatedly throughout the week or even on a day-to-day basis. So knows a lot of his customers by name and some even by their orders. He sees the store as a well- and long-loved Bowling Green establishment—an “historic anchor” whose roots go back at least to 1957. Customers are familiar and loyal partly because the store represents a memorable past (evidenced by the fact that visiting alumni who used to work or buy beer there occasionally stop by). Familiarity also attracts patrons—not just the building but also So is known: a visible figure that people recognize (like recently when a salesperson at a local car dealership knew him by name). He chuckled when asked if he considers South Side 6 a family-run business, indicating that the question was a no-brainer. Nodding affirmatively, he added that, in addition to him and his wife, his cousins are also part of the mart’s daily operations. And his own kids come and go—they are not all yet school aged (the oldest is seven) but they frequent the, often eating there. Someone, he said, is “here all the time.” By someone he meant family, because what prompted this comment was a question about how long a process it was to train employees to reproduce the menu items given that they do not use recipes. (When asked he answered laughingly: “Cookbooks? I don’t think so.”) Producing the foods at South Side 6 follows a tradition, but does not result from written instructions or precise measurements but rather from practiced family members who estimate portions “by eye.” The deli is a fairly recent part of the store’s offerings. In fact, Southside 6’s food service is only two years old, having opened in August of 2004 (although they planned it since they bought the operation 15 years ago). So describes the immediate and continued reception of the deli by community members has been positive. He attributes this in part to the healthfulness of the ingredients, which include lots of olive oil, grain, and lemon juice, and the public’s increasing health-consciousness. Basically, he says, people like it because it is just plain “good food.” Reticent to pin down customers’ favorite menu items, he does observe that they sell a lot of hummus and gyros. People shuttle in for lunch, but dinner is a busier meal for the store. And, because there is no in-house seating, folks must take their carry-out with them, which makes for an interesting variation on the carry-out/home-cooked dichotomy. Quite literally, So sees the store’s food as an extension of their home food. Thus when people pick up, they are taking homemade food home with them. Perhaps in some sense this is So’s extension of the food hospitality indicative of the Lebanese tradition. So surprised my expectations when asked about the degree to which he caters the menu or ingredients to local and customer tastes: not at all, he answered. The only menu changes that have been made since the deli’s inception have been its appearance, not its content. (A point that initially caused confusion when I asked if the menu had been changed and he answered yes. As it turned out, he was referring to the switch from handwritten to typeset.) He does not make changes to the food product. In fact, he offers the hypothetical case that he wouldn’t put less garlic in a dish, for example, to appeal to or accommodate potential buyers. Rather, So insists, the food served at the store should come out the same way that it does at home. But, according to So, no changes need to be made. Customers like his food just the way it is. And this reflects what he perceives to be a change in the area. In the past 15 years, the popularity of Lebanese food in NW Ohio has increased, due to several factors. For one, he cites an increase in Lebanese households, who not only contribute to the demand for Lebanese foods but also expose non-Lebanese friends and coworkers to them: “[Arab] communities are bigger. . . their influence on the community is bigger.” He also cites the mosque at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo as having done “quite a bit” of work toward exposing outsiders to Islamic and Arab culture, including traditional foods. In Toledo, he tells me, it used to be only Byblos and Beirut that offered Middle Eastern food; now there are several other restaurants, including the Grape Leaf Diner. He finds that more people are aware of and open to Lebanese foods, and said that television might have something to do with it to. He recommended I look into Tony Bourdain’s Bourdain in Beirut, aired August 2006 on the Travel Channel. And not just Middle Eastern but other ethnic foods So observes as gaining popularity. Now, he said, things like sushi (heretofore unfamiliar and unavailable) are offered at places like Meijer and Kroger—another piece of evidence that attitudes are changing. Confluence: An Interpretive Conclusion To consider the South Side 6 in terms of Lucy M. Long’s conception of Midwestern foodways “as layers that can be peeled away one by one” is particularly useful here; the store is not just what its external appearance suggests, as a casual passerby might assume from its un-ordinariness to be a pony keg; nor is it strictly a Lebanese deli. It is very much tied (in memory and through daily operations and social interactions) to the community of Bowling Green, but also, directly or indirectly, has connections to other cities (e.g. Detroit), other countries (e.g. Lebanon) and other times (e.g. 1957). Often overused or misused, I think here the term “postmodern” is particularly apt. Even though So (somewhat surprisingly) answered no when asked if he saw the store as representing Northwest Ohio food culture, judging by the shelves lined with Pepsi products and Budweiser bottles, cartons of Marlboros and plastic spools of scratch-off tickets, the place seems steeped in Americana. And yet the aromas of frying olive oil, of cumin, mint, and garlic mingle, imparting a different cultural fragrance to the picture, thereby creating new meaning. A locus of interaction between members of different social groups, different food traditions, different cultures, between the public and the private, between the (literal and symbolic) “here” and the “elsewhere,” the South Side 6 is not only a physical place where people make sandwiches, purchase pop, swap stories, deliver stock, and carry out lunch. Along with all of the people connected to it, is also a conceptual facilitator for negotiating food meanings and identity—individual, familial, regional, ethnic, etcetera. It might be useful (and I would had I more time here) to graphically chart some of these intersections to understand more fully all of the operant forces and influences and to see how distinct things become negotiated through the South Side Six (in some cases kept separate, in others blurred, and elsewhere combined). For So Shaheen, different practices, values, and beliefs surrounding foodways at times underscore distinct categories, such as the culture characterized by “hospitality,” which is incompatible with a culture that is not characterized by hospitality. In So’s circles, “hospitality” is a marker of cultural identity and signifies membership or non-membership to a particular group. In the case of incorporating American meals like pizza into a meal-cycle usually comprised of traditionally Lebanese foods, there is evidence of a negotiation process. It is perfectly acceptable to include fries and burgers into the family’s menu without breaching any rule or tradition, which suggests a collapse of boundaries between distinct things (even though the foods themselves are strictly “American” or “Lebanese”, the meal-cycle can be made up of both). For So, the ways of the present (described as convenient as well as less labor and time intensive) are valued almost to the complete obscuring of past ways such that no one (in his observations) bakes bread like they did in the old days. Each of these represent a different outcome resulting from the negotiation process between distinct categories, in some cases the categories remaining separate, in some cases combining, in some case one winning out over the other. The process is active and ongoing and, from So’s point of view, is not necessarily assimilating nor is it necessarily hegemonic, which supports Levenstein’s argument that peripheral groups can also inform dominant groups (not just only the other way around) as is the case with Italian-American foods. Considering the increasing demand for Lebanese (and other ethnic) foods, the growing size and influence of Lebanese communities, the openness of consumers to alternative food choices, the availability of products previously thought to be “exotic”, the promotion of ethnic foods and culture on Travel Channel and the Food Network, we may be in the midst of a similar process that, as Levenstein charted, Italian-American foods underwent: namely, that—quite possibly—foods like kibbeh and fatoush may find themselves (or Americanized versions of themselves) widely adopted by the American public. Already in Bowling Green we know that hummus and gyros (courtesy of the South Side 6) are daily making their way onto the dinner tables of the community. Which brings me, perhaps too abruptly, but necessarily so, to what will hopefully serve—however incomplete—as a makeshift set of closing remarks. The image of So’s small children (family) playing in the store (business) where customers (public) come into to buy the very same foods (the commercial/processed/American and the homemade/healthful/Lebanese) the children regularly enjoy is a complex equation of intersections, of moveable boundaries, of negotiated identities and spaces, of blurred and maintained distinctions. For So Shaheen and the South Side 6, it is not paradox but confluence that best characterizes the negotiation of foods and foodways. Change for him is not lamentable; it is a truth and inevitability. Although I have only scratched the surface of exploring the possible meanings to be found in my discussion with So, two things are certain in my mind: the critical social and cultural role that the South Side 6 plays in the context of the Bowling Green community, and the belief that, unlike the paradox “fresh frozen,” it is indeed possible to have homemade food to go. Appendix—Foodways Oral History Questionnaire Outline I. Product—Childhood Preferences and Staples Ground beef with cracked wheat and olive oil; rice, meat, pine nuts, almonds served with warm yogurt; he didn’t care for okra (served with tomato paste, which is a common dish), or liver (an uncommon food). Most dishes were meat served with a salad dish, such as fatoush. II. Performance Kibbeh, hollowed out and served with pine nuts, onions, seasonings; grilled—tradition on the holiday Eid; Pastries bring back a lot of memories of Eid. III. Context/Meal System A. Menu never had a particular daily menu, but eggs and meat was common; eggs with green onions in season (which they would grow); rice is a staple and comes with a lot of dishes (he serves it at South Side 6 every day) B. Who: Yeah, family or whoever came in the house, usually [. . . ] hospitality is different. . [in Lebanon] somebody would walk in and we pretty much insist on them sitting down and eating with us. So, whoever came.” C. Findlay for Eid—everyone asked to bring a dish; but the potluck-style was not a tradition he remembers practicing in Lebanon IV. Procurement A. As a Bowling Green storeowner, he goes to Detroit for supplies, where there is a large group of ethnic and Arabic stores. While there he also buys things the family needs at home. B. Growing up in Lebanon people often sold out of a pickup truck (tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon). They also had a backyard vegetable garden. V. Preservation A. Growing Up ground beef with a lot of lamb fat to store over the winter (do this once over the summer); “ditz,” a grape extract B. Presently By contrast, everything is much more available; growing up they did a lot more with canning, preservation, etc. for the winter. Now with stores, automobiles, the availability is much improved and so there is less need for preserving. VI. Preparation Mom, sister, and women were responsible for cooking. “Cookbooks,” he laughs, “I don’t think so.” (His wife chimes in, laughing too.) Maternal passing-down of preparation techniques and methods: “[My mom] learned from her mom and my sister probably learned from my mom.” Of himself: “I mess around in the house, but mainly I just do this stuff over here [in the store].” In NW Ohio he sees people trade recipes and go to ‘Betty Crocker’ but this isn’t part of his past or present tradition. VII. Presentation & Consumption No particular way to serve food, just whatever was available. “Just with family and everything—nothing usual or unusual.” They might say a prayer sometimes before a meal. If there’s a big gathering, the men would sit first; but in his house everyone sits together and say a prayer before they start. VIII. Clean Up Women were responsible for clean up. Food was never thrown away; always reused or added to something else. VIII. Miscellaneous Bread used as a utensil On conversation at mealtime: “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean it’s no different than any—pretty much any American family sitting together on a Thanksgiving meal.” Intersection between NW Ohio eating and Lebanese traditions: “We adjust to here kind of.” Convenience & Availability: Go to Detroit—they used to do the dough by their hands. Travel further; flour—they used to store it for the whole winter; everything was stored for the whole winter; flour was just to make bread; they would have to light a fire and bake it. Now he just drives up to Detroit; even back in Lebanon, very few people still do it that way but instead go down to the bakery. “This is convenient; it’s all about convenience now. Sometimes like maybe when you—see somebody doing it that way it just brings back memories.” They used to work a lot harder back then than they do now; it’s easier. The biggest change he notices is the convenience, which is the case in Lebanon and in Ohio. Everything he needs is available in Detroit. He can find everything in Detroit easier but there are a couple of Middle Eastern stores in Toledo. Foods at South Side 6 are traditional foods but are more sandwiches rather than the meal (fork and spoon kind of place); but the recipe is pretty traditional. One difference culture of NW Ohio—the hospitality; you insist that people sit down to eat when they visit. Serve coffee, fruits. . . the food is constantly coming. This is the most significant difference. Identity & Heritage—“Absolutely, absolutely. [. . . ] We do eat a lot of American food, we just had french fries earlier today.” They cook a lot of Lebanese food at home, sometimes lasagne, “burgers for the kids,” hot dogs but “the majority of it is [Lebanese]” His children: love pizza, but “They’ve grown up with it [Lebanese-American foods]—it’s nothing to them, actually [. . .] Maybe their buddies, or something, they’re going to school—bring them over to the house and eat some hommus or garlic or something like that.” Follow Up Questions: Amal’s experiences learning to cook among adult women: who taught her? Was it a formal step in growing up? Is the same pattern repeating with his children? Characterize the South Side 6 clientele and the store’s relationship to the community. How do people perceive the establishment? Does the business participate in any kind of Taste Of? Popular menu items, customer reception, preferences and tastes. Has the menu changed and, if so, to what are the changes responding? Family in Findlay—what sorts of occasions warrant gathering? Is food central to these? Opening the deli and training employees to prepare the menu items. Centrality of the South Side 6 to So’s family life. WORKS CITED Long, Lucy. Learning to Listen to the Food Voice: Recipes As Expressions of Identity and Carriers of Memory. Food, Culture, and Society. Spring 2004. The Travel Channel November 6, 2006 http://travel.discovery.com/fansites/bourdain/beirut_special.html?clik=fsmain_feat1
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