Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [149]
As for the tenderloin, it too is big, if not the juiciest in town. We were more fond of the double cheeseburger that filled out its bun with meat to spare. Also, the onion rings are something special: battered thick, crisp, and sweet.
Nick’s Kitchen
506 N. Jefferson St.
260–356–6618
Huntington, IN
BLD | $
The tenderloin is one of America’s great regional sandwiches; historians believe it was invented here in Huntington. The story is that Nick Frienstein started frying breaded pork cutlets in 1904 to sell in sandwiches from a street cart in town; four years later he opened a small café called Nick’s Kitchen. His method of preparing the fried pork cutlets was finessed one winter shortly after Nick moved to the café and his brother Jake suffered such severe frostbite that he lost his fingers. Jake, whose job it was to bread the slices of pork, found that his stumps made good tools for pounding the meat to make it tender. Since then, a tenderloin (no need to say pork tenderloin) has been defined as a sandwich of pork that has been either beaten tender (with a wooden hammer) or run through a mechanical tenderizer (or both).
Now run by Jean Anne Bailey, whose father owned the town café starting in 1969, Nick’s Kitchen lists its tenderloin on the menu with a challenge that’s more than a little ironic considering its culinary history: “Bet You Need Both Hands.” Two hands are barely adequate for hoisting the colossal sandwich, which is built around a wavy disk of audibly crunchy pork that extends a good two to three inches beyond the circumference of a five-inch bun, virtually eclipsing its plate. Soaked in buttermilk, which gives a tangy twist to the meat’s sweetness, and tightly cased in a coat of rugged cracker crumbs (not the more typical fine-grind cracker meal), the lode of pork inside the crust fairly drips with moisture. Jean Anne tells us she buys the meat already cut and cubed. She pounds it, marinates it, breads it, and fries it.
Nick’s Kitchen isn’t only a tenderloin stop. It’s a wonderful three-meal-a-day town café with big breakfasts and a noontime blackboard of daily specials. We loved our plate of ham, beans, and corn bread, and we were bowled over by Jean Anne’s pies. “My father served frozen ones,” she says. “I knew I wanted something better.” Made using a hand-me-down dough recipe that incorporates a bit of corn syrup, her fruit pies have a flaky crust that evaporates on the tongue, melding with brilliant-flavored rhubarb or black raspberries. Butterscotch pie—which she learned to cook from her grandmother—is more buttery than sweet, nothing at all like cloying pies made from pudding filling. Sugar-cream pie, an Indiana signature dessert, is like cream candy in a savory crust.
Phil Smidt and Son
1205 Calumet Ave.
800–FROGLEG
Hammond, IN
LD | $$
The primary reason to come to Smidt is pan-fried perch, the formal name for which is “a mess of perch.” It is available whole, boned, buttered, or boned and buttered. Old-timers do their own boning and make it look easy. The rest of us get fillets, swimming in butter. They are small sides of fish, pan-crisped, firm, freshwater luscious. Plates of perch are preceded by five relish trays, lined up in formation on the table: potato salad, kidney bean marinade, pickled beets, slaw, and cottage cheese.
If perch is not your dish, the other house specialty is frog legs, either crisp-fried or sautéed. They are messy and delicious and make chicken wings seem like second-class appendages. Smidt offers half-and-half plates of perch and legs, as well as a full menu of more traditional lake seafood, steaks, and chicken. For dessert, the one thing to know about is gooseberry pie, served warm and available à la mode.
It was about one hundred years ago that Smidt started in business as a fisherman’s shanty. Not too many fishermen are left in this industrial neighborhood, and Smidt has become a majestic