Let’s say you and your all-night party walk into an all-night diner that looks
like that famous one in the famous painting, you know which one I mean.
There’s nobody at the counter, but there is a fry-cook at the stove, so you
decide to shout out your order, because you know what your friends want,
and as a former “bubble dancer”, or dishwasher, also known as a Hydro-
Ceramic Engineer”, you happen to know restaurant slang!
“Hey,” you bark like a seasoned waiter or waitress, “Gimme a bowl o’ red,
clean up the kitchen, burn one, burn the British, wreck ’em with zeppelins in
a fog, irish turkey with a dog biscuit, cup o’ mud and a jack high & dry! Cow
feed bridge party, bossy in a bowl!”
What in hell did you just order, you ask… Well, here’s the breakdown:
A “bowl o’ red” is a bowl of red beans, generally Santa Fe style with plenty of
flavor and lots of chili peppers mixed in real good. A real bowl o’ red will take
the roof clean off your mouth and leave you with a cloud of steam rising
from the hole in your head.
“Clean up the kitchen” is the same as “gentleman will take a chance” — it’s
corned-beef hash. Beef on toast is, as you vets will know, “shit on a single”.
“Burn one” means to the short-order or fry cook “throw another burger on
the fire”, but “Burn the British” means to fork-split and toast an English
muffin.
“Wreck ’em with zeppelins in a fog” means that one of your companions is
fond of scrambled eggs with sausages in a mound of mashed potatoes.
“Irish turkey with a doggie biscuit” is restaurant lingo for corned beef &
cabbage with a cracker.
“Cup o’ mud is coffee, and a Jack is not jack cheese, as you’d maybe think,
but a grilled American cheese sandwich, named after comedian Jack
Benny, who made them famous with his radio commercial for Kraft cheese –
– oh, and your friend wants it “high and dry”, meaning without all the fancy
dressings and stuff.
That “cow-feed bridge party” means that four in your party want a salad
before their main course and you probably already figured out that “bossy in
a bowl” is a cow in a pot, meaning, of course, “beef stew”.
So, next time you’re in a restaurant, you’ll know how to ask for what you
want, as long as it’s one of the items I’ve mentioned above!
gorby