My hubby and his brother ran a little country store. They sold the hoop cheese. People from up north would come down and buy several whole hoops of it take back. Farmers would come in, buy saltine crackers, a can of sardines, a Pepsi, and a slab of hoop cheese for dinner. It's a more flavorful cheese than what you can buy at the grocery stores. I wouldn't be scared to guess that they sold a ton of it every year.
Hoop cheese is any cheese made in a hoop mold. I always called it a cheese round. I used to buy sheep milk cheese, Manchego, in the round that was made in Spain in a wooden hoop. The red wax is to keep air out and prevent mold. I always took off a slice, then used stretched cellophane to cover the top. I never knew it was called hoop cheese until now. Maybe I did and forgot it. @Beth Gallagher yes, gouda is cow's milk cheese from the Netherlands thus Dutch.
Back on topic! The last time I was at the Otis Cafe was in 2002. I started stopping at the Otis Cafe in the mid-70s on my way to the Oregon Coast. I was hooked after the first breakfast I had there. It burned in 2019 and was rebuilt due to community and international demand. This photo is from 2018. It was just a run-down old white shack with a gravel lot when I first stopped in 1975. After a New York Times article that made it internationally famous, was published in 1989, it was painted red and spiffed up. I was there at 6 AM one fine spring day in 1975, on a slow off-tourist season day and it was a two-hour experience eating the best breakfast ever and the lady giving me places to stop on my Oregon coast 2 week Hwy 101 tour. From Astoria to Brookings, she gave me info on places to eat and stay. I took notes. That was the best vacation of my life. I visited the Oregon coast and stopped at the Otis Cafe at least twice a year until 2002 when I lost my independence and ability to drive for long distances and through Portland.
There is a rural cafe in a town west of here. A tiny town that the hwy cuts through. If you didn't know it was there, you would never go. There is a large chain saw carved bear out front but a sign you barely see. The cross hwy it is on is not as well traveled. The food is amazing, what they used to call home cooking. Breakfast and lunch. Great coffee. Good prices although they were up the last time I went.
No, never saw it, FB. I had sausage gravy at Wanda's today over homefries, with two extra patties of sausage. I looked at the ketchup bottle and said NO WAY!
It was packed in there yesterday, so you woulda had to sit on my lap. So you coulda squirted some on when I wasn’t looking.
Being Swedish myself, my whole family put applesauce on potato pancakes. Not the same as applesauce on potatoes exactly, but maybe something similar there!
Several years ago, we were driving through rural Iowa and stopped at a diner in a little town. We walked in and it was packed. There was a big round table at the front window with about eight old farmers in their bib overalls chowing down and everyone looked like they were thoroughly enjoying lunch. BINGO! We thought we had hit the jackpot. Country cookin' at its best! If the old farmers are there, it's gotta be good, right? Uh, no. I can't remember what we ordered but it was uniformly tough and dry and tasteless. I saw banana cream pie on the menu and figured I'd gamble on it being homemade and good. Nope. You could tell it was made with Jello Banana Pudding and a can of Walmart spray dairy topping in a frozen pie shell. Oh, well.