Memories of the old Blue Plate Mayonnaise Plant in New Orleans tied in to a funny situation of making sandwiches with an elder.
Recently, in traveling through my beloved hometown of N'Awlins, I passed by the Blue Plate Mayonnaise Plant on Jeff Davis Pkwy that is now a cool looking "Artistic Apartment Loft!"
As a kid when we took our family Sunday visits from Uptown to Gentilly to visit Grandma Kleinpeter, we would pass there in my dad's old Plymouth. Us 'Yats have our own way of pronouncing "my - o - nass!" - but you have to be careful using that around "foreigners" - anyone not born in the Big Easy!
So, later, when I was in graduate school at SDSU and a live-in, caregiver for Lucille, a feisty and frail, hard of hearing 83 y/o widow, I had a memorable experience with our 'Yat linguistics.
One day, after I did some yard work for Lucille, we sat down for lunch and were making ham sandwiches. I kindly asked Lucille to "pass me her 'my - o - nass,'" at which she got indignant and said, "Keith, I'm shocked at you - how can you ask for my a _ _! I thought you were a good Catholic boy?!" I don't think I had ever blushed as much as a crawfish till then! After I explained what I meant, we had a good laugh and pretended to make a muffuletta!
That was funny. Actually, I think she was flattered. ;-)
I wasn't very picky with food as a child, but I didn't like most salad dressings for some reason because they were too spicy, sweet or sour (I do now) and would always insist on having "just mayonnaise" on my salads. But I didn't put it on any of my sandwiches because I thought it detracted from the taste of the meat or cheese or whatever was in the sandwich. I still cringe when fast food restaurants put the obligatory dollop of catchup, mustard, and mayonnaise as though we have to be trained to like all three at the same time. Not to mention the special sauce… So I won't. ;-)
The Nabisco plant finally shut down here in Houston a few years ago. It was snatched up by the UT-Medical Center and they created a wonderful classroom and laboratory building out of it. The old hardwood floors are amazing as well as the old metal windows and white painted heavy brick walls, although they cracked when I drove my heavy electric wheelchair over their joints, newly shellacked together.
Recently, in traveling through my beloved hometown of N'Awlins, I passed by the Blue Plate Mayonnaise Plant on Jeff Davis Pkwy that is now a cool looking "Artistic Apartment Loft!"
