While listening to Tommy Tomlinson’s podcast, SouthBound, I was taken back to a time when my dad and his friend owned a Gulf Service Station in small-town USA, and I thought of food sold at gas stations through the years.
Tomlinson’s guest was Kate Medley, a photojournalist who has, in her words, spent years roaming the South to take pictures of gas station food and the people and places that serve it. Her recently published book entitled Thank You Please Come Again includes 200 photographs.
Medley talked about service stations, convenience stores, and quick stop markets. She sampled tamales, fried fish, and sandwiches of all kinds: everything from bologna to ham and cheese to banh mi, a sandwich combination of meat and vegetables.
In the 1950s, the only food and drink for sale at Dad’s and Omer’s Gulf Station were salted peanuts, candy bars, and cokes, sold in a big drink machine. Cokes, of course, refer to all carbonated beverages and they were in thick glass bottles.
After drinking some of a coke, I carefully poured peanuts from a small cellophane package into the thick glass coke bottle. The drink fizzed. The peanuts rose to the top. And almost every time I drank this concoction, I spilled it on my shirt.
There was an electric coffee percolator in Dad’s and Omer’s office, but the coffee wasn’t for sale. It was for everyone who wanted a cup of coffee. Mechanics who worked in the garage, employees who pumped gas, cleaned windshields, and checked oil, and friends who stopped by to visit. A service station was place for men to hang out and swap stories, but no one expected to buy lunch there.
When did gas stations begin serving food? Or maybe when did quick stop markets started selling gas?
By the 1970s, convenience stores that sold gas, grocery items, and fast food were popular. For a few years, Husband and his business partner owned three Lickity Split Markets here in Cookeville. Lickity Split Fried Chicken, whole pieces with bones and a thick breaded coating, and potato wedges were big sellers. Cold custom-made sandwiches were also available. Customers could fill their car with gas and clean their windshield, buy lunch, and pick up a few groceries all in one stop.
Now, it’s common for most of us when driving long distances to make one stop for everything: a bathroom, fill the gas tank, and buy a snack or meal, that could be hamburgers, soup, tacos, fruit, salad, chicken wrap – almost anything.
Photojournalist Medley discovered that today’s markets supply more than food and gas. On her website she wrote, “In an ever more divided America, these iconic gathering spaces provide unexpected community, generosity, labor, and creativity.”
Community gathering places – much like Dad’s service station seven decades ago.
The book’s subtitle is How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South. Makes me want to drive the blue highways and check out gas station food. And the book will be on my Christmas want list.
Filed under: Food | Tagged: gas station food | 1 Comment »
Susan Writes 