"Kon-Tiki" Fads Spread Bad Food Across Country

(this was a syndicated column by Russell Kirk taken from Ada(,OK)Evening News, 26 May 1965)

A pestilent rash of "Polynesian" restaurants la spreading
across the face of this land of ours. I confess that, intially (sic), I
smiled upon these eating-houses. But they degenerate in quality,
and I yearn for food, not for pseudo-Pacific cuteness. Down with
cuisine and decor a la Kon Tiki!
The Kon-Tiki fad now extends to Podunk and Tuxedo Junction.
Certain wholesalers thrive by selling nothing but grass matting,
imitations of Easter Island figures, and the
other paraphernalia of "South Seas" dining.
Mr. Thor Heyerdahl, ethnologist and author of
that delightful book "The Voyage of the Kon-
Tiki," must be aghast at the architectural and
gastronomic atrocities committed in the name
of his balsa raft.
Primarily, the trouble with these sham-Pacific
restaurants is that the cooks don't really know
how to prepare Polynesian or Micronesian or
Indonesian or Malayan dishes — how could
they? — and that the proprietors think garish ersatz-Tahiti decor
will atone for the dubious fare and the high prices. I confess
that a few of these dining-rooms are pleasant, with their fantastic
drinks and almond-eyed waitresses. But here I reproach the
typical "atoll" masquerade just off the throughway, with its
thin veneer of fakery and its insipid adaptation of American-
Chinese menus.
South Seas dishes are all very well in Papeete or Noumea. But
the typical American restauranteur would do better to serve food
he knows how to judge and prepare, and to decorate his walls
with decent simplicity. Dining on sham amid sham doesn't assist
digestion.
Every region of America has its traditional cookery, which a
good restaurant-keeper can embellish and emphasize. Every
town in America has some history or local characteristics which
can become the subject of interesting decor in an eating-house:
some places have competent local artists or designers, who ought
to be given their chance to give a restaurant some touch of
originality.
Americans are not singular in their present neglect of their
native cookery. In South Africa, there exists not a single eatinghouse
which specializes in the hearty old Afrikaans (Boer) dishes.
The vast majority of "better" South African restaurants serve
their version of English cuisine, alas. (Sorry to say, English
cooking survives the dissolution of the British empire. Will the
sun never set upon those dreary "mixed grills" and long-boiled
Brussels sprouts?)
This world of ours grows daily more standardized and massproduced.
Every effort ought to be made toward preserving and
stimulating diversity and local character in the details of life;
for the boredom of uniformity is a principal plague of the affluent
society.
So in Dixieland, or Yankeeland. I'll take my stand for the oldfashioned
kitchen. Not every American city can have traditional
restaurants as delicious as those of New Orleans, but every
restauranteur can do something to brighten the corner where
he is. I'd as soon eat balsa logs as digest some of the stuff that
passes for "Kon Tiki".

(what a pill, huh?)

Would this article then be the official start of the first wave of tiki backlash?? :)

Seriously, though, great find!
Cheers,
Rupe

You can tell he never tried my curried balsa logs.

On 2007-08-30 18:19, pappythesailor wrote:
(this was a syndicated column by Russell Kirk taken from Ada(,OK)Evening News, 26 May 1965)

I had relatives in that neck of the woods in that time period and he sounds just like them, LOL!

My first thought upon reading the Kirk column was annoyance. A mid-sixties article on Polynesian restaurants that starts with the phrase 'A pestilent rash'? How dare he!

As I read on though, I saw more things I liked. There is nothing wrong with promoting local flavors and tradition at all, as he is correct there. But does one want every restaurant in one's town to feature local flavors? There is a bit of food xenophobia in the article. Notice that Kirk's tone is more of 'this isn't our native food - let's stick to what we know' versus 'Let's make more efforts to attract Polynesians and other ethnic groups, so we can then taste their wonderful food cooked in their authentic styles, without traveling halfway around the world.'

A lot has changed in 42 years. Back then, there really were a lot more locally owned restaurants, and very few of the big-name food franchises that one sees today. In that sense, perhaps we have de-eveolved.

Few of us on Tiki Central ate as an adult in an authentic Polynesian restaurant in the mid-60's era, so who knows, perhaps Kirk was right. What if the food in most tiki-era Polynesian restaurants really did not taste good? Trader Vics has survived to today, partly because of their high standards for quality. But if the majority of the restaurants served bad food, that would in the long run keep the customers away, and if that effect is multiplied all over the country, that could be a reason for the downfall of tiki.

I am intrigued that Kirk admits that the drinks served are fantastic, and he does adore the almond-eyed waitresses. I would die today to have a place like that here in DC, evn if the food was lousy. But evidently that was not enough for Kirk in the mid sixties. I do get the feeling that if Kirk were alive today, he might be complaining about the commercialization of tiki culture, but still admiring those few places and people who were getting it right.

A final note. Russel Kirk was not some local Oklahoman newspaper editor, but a well-known syndicated columnist living in upstate Michigan, known by some as the 'father of the conservative movement' and best known for his 1953 book 'The Conservative Mind.' From what I read about him, he was quite an interesting person.

Thanks for finding that article Pappy.

I grew up in Connecticut in the 60's. We frequently ate at a couple of local Polynesian restaurants, whose names I forget. I think the one in West Hartford was called the South Seas. There was another about 10 miles west of that in Canton. They both had fountain pools with ceiling to floor waterfall cascades; soft Hawai'ian guitar in the background. They were still around in the 70s and 80s, but I think they bit the dust in the 90's.

Whenever my mom took me on a long road trip with her, we'd usually opt to stop at a Polynesian restaurant if we saw one. Loved the food.

PSEUDO-PACIFIC CUTENESS!

Great find Pappy! What a hoot. We tend to romanticize those Polynesian establishments of the past, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of them served bad food and/or drinks. Tiki was a long-running fad and I'm sure many capitalized on it without much concern for quality. I find it interesting that Kirk thought his world was "standardized and massproduced". I can only imagine how disgusted he'd feel about the blandness and sameness of much of what is out there today.

My first reaction was "Oh great, tiki bashing...." But the more I thought about it, back about this time there were probably so many restauranteurs jumping on the faux-Polynesian band wagon there were bound to be quite a few restaurants that didn't really know what they were doing and were simply trying to get rich on a fad.

I would love to live in some alternate universe where Tiki Bars were too numerous to count and sports bars numbered in the mere dozens, shadows of their former glory, worshipped by a tiny but dedicated misfit group of nerds and hipsters. And every once in awhile the SportsBarCentral Blog would rise up in outrage to rally and petition (to no avail) the loss of another 10-story Condo complex, or the bulldozing of the last surviving Dave and Busters to make room for yet another city-block sized polynesian superfortress. The palace at Disneyland would be redone with an upswept A-frame design and every song in the top 40 would have Vibraphones and Bongos or Steel Guitars and Ukeleles

I would love to live in that strange, mystical alternate universe because ONLY THEN could I relate to this guy's article about "too much Kon-Tiki!"

Gee...the surprise over this article demonstrates again what a veil of forgetfulness has fallen over The Book of Tiki. I always thought that the seeing and reading of this very article (well, the first, most erudite half) on page 52 of the BOT would leave an indelible imprint in any Tiki lover's mind, especially because it is such fascinating proof of how the media and critics ("the Taste Police") never accepted and even looked down on Tiki, even in its heyday (last paragraph on page 53).

It's not that I don't forget things, I do, (a lot), but when they do pop up somewhere, I usually remember that I had seen them somewhere before. Or this is just more proof that those little black symbols (letters) on the book's pages get taken in by less people than one would think. :)

Which actually is fine, being that the VISUALS are my main tool of telling the story of Tiki, in the BOT as in TIKI MODERN. Yet the hope is always there that the images will seduce the viewer to read the background story.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-09-04 14:22 ]

On 2007-09-04 14:13, bigbrotiki wrote:
Gee...the surprise over this article demonstrates again what a veil of forgetfulness has fallen over The Book of Tiki.

There was a Book of Tiki?

:wink:

I bought it but it wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

There are words in your books, Sven?!...:wink:

I definately won't be going to HIS Tiki Barber!

On 2007-09-05 07:12, MrBaliHai wrote:
There are words in your books, Sven?!...:wink:

Yes! And if you would read it, it would greatly simplify your life! :roll:

Bigbro, I hope you know we love you. (Well, I do anyway.) My yankee sense of humor gets me in trouble all over the Southern & eastern hemispheres.

On 2007-09-05 15:37, bigbrotiki wrote:
Yes! And if you would read it, it would greatly simplify your life! :roll:

That gives me a great idea for your next book, Sven!

Thanks for cracking me up first thing in the morning! That is fun-nieee! :D

On 2007-09-06 07:32, bigbrotiki wrote:
Thanks for cracking me up first thing in the morning! That is fun-nieee! :D

Just consider it my contribution to the inevitable Idiocritization of Western Civilization...:wink:

I think I read somewhere earlier in this thread the suggestion that there were not many "old-timers" on Tiki Central who were around during the peak on the Tiki era in the 1960's.

Well . . . I can personally report that there are quite a few of us still around . . . we were there in the 1960's and even earlier.

In fact, I remember an evening in the Tonga Room (at the SF Fairmont Hotel) in 1953. I remember the girl with me that evening very well. Sorry, but I don't remember the decor, the food, or the drink . . . but she says it was classic "tiki."

So . . . if you want to know what it was like in the good, old "Tiki" days . . . just ask an old-timer's girl friend.

Well as far as ADA oklahoma is concerned, they killed TWO DRIVE_IN THEATRES. . . I hate them FOREVER. . .

Bad ADA!

Now that this has been bumped, I just wanted to say two things: I knew this article was quoted in the BOT. I posted it so people could read the whole thing. Also, this appeared in papers 'cross the country. I just happened to find it in an OK paper so don't be mad at Ada (unless they killed your favorite and next-favorite drive-ins).

As another of the "Old Timers" . . . I vaguely remember celebrating my twenty-first birthday (and drinking legally for the first time . . . in Mass., anyway) at the Kowloon in Saugus, Massachusetts in nineteen. . . . cough, cough... sixty .. . . mumble. . . mumble . . ! The food didn't hurt me . . . the drink didn't either (who feels pain after a mixture of six or seven "Exotic" cocktails?) . . . and I turned out just fine thank you very much!
I may even go back there one day . . .( if the Gods permit). . . to finish my Kon-Tiki corruption!

I bet you feel more like you do now now than you did when you came in.

GH

[ Edited by: GentleHangman 2007-09-26 15:06 ]