Loomis - Detroit food: coney dogs to farmers markets

Published by American Palate

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by Bill Loomis

All rights reserved

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62584.860.4

Library of Congress CIP data applied for.

print edition ISBN 978.1.60949.767.5

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Contents

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Adam Ferrell at The History Press for his support on this project, as well as Joe Gartrell, who initiated it and kept things going.

Thank you also to photographer Ankur Dholakia whose friendly advice and Detroit connections were very helpful. His experience and artistic vision with a camera were inspiring.

Also, thanks to my great friend of many years Bob Hart, who accompanied me to several of these eateries.

I want to thank so many friendly, generous people who are part of the food movement in Detroit. It is a pleasure and inspiration to see so many people doing good things. When smart people throw themselves into something, great things happen. Its happening in Detroit.

Finally, thanks to my wife, Janice, who even while swamped with work found time to listen to stories, help with editing and make tactful suggestions where things didnt work. And to my daughter, Natasha, who while young has excellent food sense, can already cook up a storm and is my favorite ice-skating partner at Campus Martius downtown.

BILL LOOMIS

I would like to thank Bill Loomis for asking me to shoot pictures for his book and Adam Ferrell at The History Press for taking a chance on me and hiring me to do this project.

I would also like to thank the food entrepreneurs who are staking claim to the city and putting their own stamp on the Detroit food culture. You guys are an inspiring bunch, and I can see your passion through the food you make. Detroit needs more people like you.

Lastly, I would like to thank my wife, Ruchi, for being my art director and assistant and encouraging me to finish the assignment.

ANKUR DHOLAKIA

Introduction

Talking with chefs, restaurant owners, bartenders, farmers, sausage makers, waitresses, baristas and more, one is taken by their passion. It may be for the food or drinks they create, their adopted neighborhoods, the people with whom they work or even the history of the buildings in which they live. It is almost never the money. Even though making money is the bottom line, it is not what drives them. For many, it is a calling. It is a job that includes a sense of purpose, a deeply felt commitment. These are not people who would open a Dairy Queen in some quiet suburb. They do recognize the economic advantages of what they are doing, such as how cheap it is to start a restaurant or food business in Detroit compared to other cities. And they do understand the challenges and risks of Detroit; typically, the feeling among these entrepreneurs is that crime is real but never as bad as people from the suburbs think it is. The city is in such terrible shape that it can provide little to nothing in terms of support. For some businesses, like food trucks, it offered mostly bureaucratic difficulties. But these people are entrepreneurs who see something that others do not, and they are committed to that vision.

This book was written to give readers a glimpse at some of the people and their activities that are making today the most exciting time to be involved in the Detroit food scene. Some people own bakeries, some are urban farmers and some have saved old restaurants. Some hold pop-up events, like the very popular Tashmoo Biergarten in the small emerging neighborhood called West Village. Some of them, for the first time in their lives, talk about finding not just a business but a home in Detroit. Several are quick to relay their credentials of growing up or living for a time in some neighborhood of Detroit, while others are from elsewhereArizona, Canada or closer, like Ann Arbor. Many are young, but not allone of the owners of the Mercury Burger Bar is a retired Detroit cop. They bond with others like themselves; they eat at one anothers places, promote and praise one another, share news and gossip, loan tools or trucks, look after one another and respect whatever each one is trying to do. Generosity is a part of this small community.

It is inspiring to meet and talk with these people, and when you listen to some of them, you realize why the city is making a comeback. It also explains why the national press and people from around the United States and the world are watching the city and visiting these places.

Its only food, but food can do that. Visit Detroit and see what the excitement is all about.

Detroits Food Roots

Up from the Ashes

Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus

(We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes).

A group of Detroit history lovers meets once a month in different Detroit bars to hear lectures and discussions on Detroits history. With glasses raised high, they repeat Detroits motto to start each meeting: one side of the room begins with half the motto, and then the other side responds with the second part: We hope for better thingsit will rise from the ashes.

Those words are the Detroit city motto, composed in Latin by Father Gabriel Richard right after the great fire of 1805 that leveled the city, which at the time was a village of fewer than two thousand people. Detroits motto has an eerie relevance that is so spot on it sometimes makes people gasp when they first read it; how does a city motto written more than 220 years ago speak so directly to what Detroit is dealing with today?

After any terrible disaster in which homes are burned down, destroyed, and family and friends possibly hurt or killed, the first things that put life onto the road to normalcy and the victims to begin thinking of better things are shelter and sharing something to eat, especially hot food. If one can eat, one can begin the heavy task of hauling off the charred, smoky wreckage and clearing space for rebuilding the future. Food heals. When one is offered good food that is locally made with knowledge and care, it brings back a love of life and a desire for better things. Before you can raise up your city from destruction, you have to have the desire to do it and not just walk awayto see a future that you hope can be better and not just the burned-out homes and destroyed lives. This is why Gabriel Richards motto is so perfectly written and fitting.

The flag of the City of Detroit, with the city motto.

The fire of 1805 occurred in June. All suffered. In 1804, Father Richard had built a new childrens school, which was destroyed in the fire. In 1805, there was little medicine other than brandy; it was food people used to nourish the ailing: brandy with hot food, probably soup, poisson blanc (roast white fish so abundant in the Detroit River that it was many times free to be had) or other freshwater fish found in the Detroit River or Lake St. Clair, such as perch, walleye, sturgeon, lake trout or herring. It very well may have been