Have fork will travel
Assistant Cook
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2008
- Messages
- 18
And a great slogan it was. Every so often, I'll mention "Red's Tamales Day" to somebody (on a Tuesday of course) and enjoy watching the blank stares.
i like blue diamond products. and i vaguely remember that slogan."Tuesday is Red's Tamales Day."
I think this must have been a local Oakland product.
Another great slogan is for Blue Diamond Almonds (Central California Almond Growers Coop)
"A can a week, that's all we ask."
you sure are right on the money about no good tamales on the east coast!! when i was a kid in the 60's my mom took us to flemington junction in NJ. back when it was just little buildings scatered around railroad tracks. there was a tiny restaraunt, more like a shack from the outside called Tico Taco. but when you went inside they hard hardwood tables and benches with backs suspended on chains from the ceiling. it was exciting for a kid to eat a meal on a swinging table and chair! anyway they had THE BEST tacos and tamales. they are gone now and i miss them so much. there are still A&W all american restaraunts in the PA area and they still serve rootbeer and rootbeer floats in frosted mugs. just my two centsHey all,
I know a few things about Red's Tamales. My father worked for a time around 1955 for Ingram's Food Products and was successful in getting some school systems in the San Francisco Bay Area to take Red's for lunches.
The company was owned by John Reading. He was mayor of Oakland from 1966-1977 and sold the company in the 70's. The Oakland Coliseum was built on his watch. My family had dinner at the Reading's house when I was a young kid and my lasting impression is of a man with a strong personality who cooked corn-on-the-cob on his barbecue. It tasted burned.
The tamales were made in a pretty traditional manner, so I suspect the dough was made with real lard. The filling tasted great but not very spicy. It had meat and sauce. I wish I had the exact recipe for it.
You can't find really good, ready-made tamales on the East Coast. I make decent tamale pie for my family, but not as good as the lunch ladies made in the San Lorenzo school district in the 1960s.
I remember A&W Root Beer, Casper's Hot Dogs in Oakland and the Doggie Diner downtown. Doggie Diner put a sauce and stuff on their hamburgers that was terriffic, too.
Happy cooking!
olddj1
can i come with you? LOL are you from NJ? i know what you mean about every rest area having the same lousy chain food places. we drive when we go on vacation and it is hard to find any good mom and pop's any more.I don't know who bought the food company, but I'm not aware of it or the tamales and other products continuing. I remember the Foster's Freeze name but I don't have memories of flavors associated with them. I do remember eating multiple times in a Casper's that was possibly on Broadway in Oakland. It had a nickel jukebox, too. That would have been around 1962. I wasn't aware at that time of any other locations, although there might have been. I've always been sorry that small chains like Doggie Diner with really great-tasting products have been driven out of business by the onslaught of mega-chains. In a cross-country trip in 1959 from New Jersey to Northern Calif., I ate hamburgers at small Mom n' Pop restaurants at nearly every stop. They were all different, and they were mostly delicious. Those days are over. On an 1,100-mile trip to Minnesota last June, everywhere we got off the highway looked a lot like San Jose with all the same restaurants. We did find a great one, though, Paul. If you're ever in the middle of the country, go out of your way to eat at the Beef House Restaurant, off I-74 at Covington, Indiana, near the Illinois border. Not fast food, one of the best meals I've ever eaten, and not expensive. Mmmmmmm. mmm. Let's see. If I leave now and drive fast, what time would it be....
-Mark, aka olddj1
i understand completely. I have driven to canada to florida to arizona. i have run across THOSE kinda places.Well, in 2006, us empty nesters took a 9000 mile road trip back east to New England on US 2. It was a blue highway trip all the way until Salt Lake City on the way home and we were tired, so we took I-80 the rest of the way. We ate great food all the way, from little cafes in Bonners Ferry ID to Malta MT to Bemiji MN to Bea's cafe and the Scarecrow in Conway NH. There was a great place in Saratoga NY. I wish I could remember the names of all of them. All little "mom and pop" places. All great food and friendly people. Just reminds me that the rest of the US isn't like California.
So I developed my first law of good eats: "There is an inverse relationship between the fanciness of the restaurant and the quality of the food."
My second law: "If it has red velvet wallpaper, run for your life."
I will always be a fan of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."
Cheers!
Paul
I would not agree with this as a broad statement, but I have frequently said the same thing for lobster places in New England. The dumpier the place looks the better the food will be. We look for the most run down shack possible and are never disappointedSo I developed my first law of good eats: "There is an inverse relationship between the fanciness of the restaurant and the quality of the food."
I have found that some of the best "Ice Creme Parlours" have "Red Velvet wallpaper". So I'll still seek them out.If it has red velvet wallpaper, Run for your life!
Most of the "Hoitey Toitey" Restaurants around here don't live up to their billing either. Spa sized portions of fusion fare.Run For Your Life!
I remember Farrel's, but I don't remember going there. In the '70s, the kids were babies and my career was taking off, so we didn't go out much. There was another Ice Cream Parlour in the Fremont Hub, but it closed years ago. Meanwhile, we're stuck with Baskin-Robbins. But their sundae's are OK.
Cheers!
Paul