1962 Lucius Beebe column on Polynesian Traps

From Gourmet, 1962, here's an entertaining read by columnist Lucius Beebe, pictured here.

Pretty severe, but kinda fun to read and as a matter of fact he actually held places like the SF Trader Vics in quite high regard. Keep an eye out for where he calls out Trader Vic's, Trader Dick's, Skipper Kent's, and the Lanai by name...

*POLYNESIAN TRAPS

I would like to take a long, hard, and not altogether approving look at a gastronomic manifestation that, in recent years on the West Coast, has been making millionaires of third-rate entrepreneurs and ruining the digestions of millions of customers who probably don't deserve any better but should still receive a certain measure of personal protection, as they do under the provisions of the Pure Food & Drug Act.

I refer to the dismal rash of quasi-Polynesian traps which now have been spawned from coast to coast but flourish in their most lethal abundance in California, probably on the reasonable grounds of geographic proximity to their alleged source of origin in the islands of the Pacific. It seems probable that, since the contaminated-meat scandals of the Civil War, or at least the horsemeat hamburger revelations in Chicago a few years back, no undertaking of mass pollution of taste and wholesale poisoning of innocent men and women has been attempted on a magnitude to compare with the neon-lit squalor now being presented on every hand in the name of Polynesian dining.

Let us fix the blame for this epidemic of submediocrity right where it belongs: on the doorstep of Trader Vic Bergeron of San Francisco, a restaurateur of blameless professional reputation and, especially in the field of drinks, positively humanitarian instincts. Unfortunately for millions of people, he made a superb go of the first of all of these Chinese vegetable places and has incited imitators by the thousands, none of whom has been characterized by a jot of Trader Vic's integrity or the faintest suspicion of his flair for endowing the commonplace with romantic overtones.

Overnight quasi-Polynesian restaurants became as common in the American countryside as drive-ins and milk bars. They have a common decor depicting the beach at Waikiki teeming with surfboards and happy natives assembled for luaus or potential sex orgies. Fishnets snag the unwary on the way to the men's room. The menus are the size of Wamsutta bedsheets printed on coconut fiber manufactured by the American Celotex Company. The food is fabricated from fish heads and boiled newspapers, and listed on the bill of fare under names that make Oriental visitors snicker.

Many of these grottoes carry their steal from Vic Bergeron to the point of advertising themselves as "Trader Nick" or "Trader Dick." "All of them," states The Wall Street Journal in the understatement of the year, "command good prices for food and drinks made with relatively inexpensive ingredients." What the oracle of finance really means is that a good many of them charge outrageous prices for food, at least, that is worthless. But curiously enough, in the experience of your reporter, most of these el dumpos run by straw-skirted Borgias give the customers a relatively fair shake at the bar.

The sophisticated diner who isn't beguiled by the insane music of steel guitars and hypnotized by the tropical fish in the tanks on the back bar into ordering from the Gum Mop Toop department, with an exotic dessert of Clum Blum Yoy made from genuine Ceylonese guano, can do pretty well for himself at table if he knows the ropes at even the most notorious poi places. Few of the proprietors would for the period of a split second think of ordering from their own assortment of authentic Polynesian entrees, and some of the best Kansas steer meat available is stashed away for the informed clientele and friends of the management who admire the Mai Tais at the bar but want Christian food when they sit down at table.

I am given to understand, although do not report the circumstance on my own authority, that in San Francisco the steaks at Skipper Kent, for some years the best accredited imitation of Trader Vic's, are of remarkable excellence, and I myself can certify that one of the best filets in the entire Burlingame-Hillsborough complex along the Camino Real, where I spend some of the inclement months, can be had at a surfboard stoop named the Lanai, which is one of the components of a deluxe hotel-motel-restaurant setup four miles south of San Mateo.

If you must eat in the dark amidst papier-mache waterfalls while Polynesian natives from the University of California graduate schools perform tribal rites with drinks in coconut shells, the fact stands that hidden in the tidewater trash on the menu in many a South Seas deadfall there lurk other dishes of surprising excellence.*

Now there's a guy who doesn't mince words! Puts me in the mood for some Clum Blum Yoy.

-Randy

[ Edited by: aquarj 2010-09-01 09:11 ]

Talk about kicking sacred tiki cows!!! This article is an absolute classic. Thanks for posting it!

CN

That's a stellar find, Randy!

I bet Beachbum Berry would like to see this article, because Beebe seems to give the drinks credit, even in the "trap" restaurants.

On 2010-09-01 10:44, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
I bet Beachbum Berry would like to see this article, because Beebe seems to give the drinks credit, even in the "trap" restaurants.

He has it, and he quoted the "straw-skirted Borgias" line in Taboo Table!

Proving once again that the Bum is not a bum at all when it comes to being ahead of the curve on poly-pop culture.

-Randy

"The food is fabricated from fish heads and boiled newspapers, and listed on the bill of fare under names that make Oriental visitors snicker."

This guy was hilarious! :lol: So many gems in such a short article

EDIT - Lucius Beebe, 1902-1966 American author, gourmand, bon vivant.
Beebe was known for his numerous pranks. One of his more outrageous stunts included an attempt at festooning J. P. Morgan's yacht with toilet paper from a chartered airplane. His pranks were not without consequence and he proudly noted that he had the sole distinction of having been expelled from both Harvard and Yale
A noted boulevardier, Beebe had an impressive and baroque wardrobe. Columnist Walter Winchell referred to Beebe and his wardrobe as "Luscious Lucius."

The above fish head quote is listed in Wikipedia along with this fine bit of advice
"If anything is worth doing it's worth doing in style, and on your own terms, and nobody's Goddamned else's!"

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2010-09-01 15:54 ]

Hilarious!
Love the line "positively humanitarian instincts" pertaining to Vic's drinks.

Randy,

Nice find on that Beebe article. Here is another article featuring some text from Beebe that I had listed in my post on the Monte Proser Beachcomber chain:

Syndicated columnist Lucius Beebe seemed to think the New York Beachcomber was an extension of the original California club, which he described as "a gloomy grotto of strong waters specializing in rum toddies of paralyzing dimensions." In a 1940 article headlined "Rash of Tropical Saloons Spreads Across Nation," Beebe wrote that it would soon "be possible to cross the continent without ever emerging from a Zombie swoon."

He was not thrilled by the prospect, and predicted the Tiki fad would soon fizzle, He was only off by about 30 or 40 years, which was how long it took for the deluge of faux-Polynesia finally to dry up.

It seems that Beebe was fond of the subject for a few decades! Would be nice to see a full copy of the early article.

DC