Oysters and Gaggers

A hot, soft, salted pretzel purchased from a street vendor near Madison Square Garden on 34th St., slathered in mustard, the size of a small Frisbee, was my breakfast Saturday morning. Eating it on the run, trying to make my appointment, put me in a New York frame of mind. It was a bright, breezy winter’s day. But even mild weather cuts a little deeper in Manhattan, where cold winds whip around the severe corners of skyscrapers that block the sun, keeping light and heat from reaching you in the grid of concrete and steel that fancies itself as the world’s greatest city.

Earlier, upon exiting Grand Central Station, the first sound I heard was a honking taxi. The driver was trying to scatter pedestrians, who were using the crosswalk legally – according to the symbol of the little white man at the stoplight, indicating it was time to cross. But that didn’t matter to the cabbie. He tried to drive through them. A few of the walkers told him to attempt something that was anatomically impossible for anyone not named Gumby. Then they pounded the back of his cab to emphasize the point. The cabbie yelled back. The passenger in the back seat clutched her purse and stared out the window with wild-eyed terror. The moment passed. The streets erupted in a chorus of honking cabs and ambulance sirens, and before long the sounds of beeping construction trucks and jackhammers completed the familiar Gotham soundtrack. In the midst of the cacophony, my dripping pretzel struck an authentic New York note.

Later that afternoon, while waiting for the 4:07 to New Haven, I found a counter seat at the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar and blurred the distance between New York and Rhode Island before the train trip by ordering a platter of oysters – Beavertails, Watch Hills and Moonstones – all from South County. They were so good I decided to detour to Massachusetts – Wellfleets, Martha’s Vineyards and Cotuits. Naked Cowboys from Long Island, Witch Ducks from Virginia and French Kisses from Nova Scotia completed the tour. I paid, left the counter, and gave up my seat to the person standing behind me. The city never sleeps, but a lot of its waking time is spent waiting in line.

Supper was wieners. Three, all the way, at a wiener joint in East Providence, after the train ride and drive back. They don’t have Coney Island Systems or New York Systems in New York, of course, which was part of the appeal of dining there that night. While I waited, I read the menu. Wieners, also called “gaggers,” “belly busters” or “missiles,” come in 30-foot links, which are then chopped into their four-inch eating shapes. There’s also a name for a wiener served without the wiener. It’s called an “air dog,” and is simply the soft white steamed bun with mustard, meat sauce, chopped onions and celery salt. Rhode Islanders have a strange obsession with doughy white bread-like foods, whether accompanying chow mein sandwiches (chow mein on a hamburger bun), grinders, doughboys or strip pizza. It’s the only state in the country where the Wonder Bread trucks parked at the Hostess Bakery Outlet in Warwick don’t look like something that popped out of a time machine.

At Sparky’s, unlike my experience at the oyster bar, this time I was the only customer at the counter. In fact, I was the only person in the entire joint, except for the grill man, who said that he could usually count on a late-night crowd (it’s open until 3 a.m. on weekends) but added that it has been dead so far in January. He asked if I wanted a drink. I asked if I could have water. He said, “As long as the Scituate Reservoir hasn’t run out.” We talked about old times. I remembered a night at Sparky’s years ago, where the counter crowd included an albino, a midget, a transvestite and a thin, scarred man covered in leather, tattoos and piercings. Those were the days of three gaggers for a dollar and music played on vinyl. For under five bucks you could make a night out of a bottomless cup of coffee, an arm of wieners and a jukebox.

What’s your favorite food memory?