What I’m Reading
Sep
29
After going home a few weeks ago, Chris decided that upon his return to Boston he wanted to make for me a classic Rochester meal: the garbage plate. Traditionally the foodstuff of hungover Rochester hipsters and college kids, the garbage plate is both a blessing and a curse. I have only ever sampled one garbage plate despite many trips to Rochester with Chris, a fact that can be attributed to most of the locations where one might procure them being places you might also be killed in a drive-by shooting.
Still, when you hear the siren call of one of these piles of meat and carbs it’s best to get as far away as possible, lest you be dashed to death on the shores of caloric annihilation.
I wasn’t kidding. Anyway, despite my misgivings about eating something that could potentially cause immediate cardiac arrest I agreed to help put together this regional culinary masterpiece. Chris started the hot sauce which seemed like it had about eleventy kajillion different spices and ingredients, including a pound of hamburger.
Can’t you just feel the arteries clogging? I suppose in a way, Rochester is lucky to have its own culinary claim to fame. I mean, Boston has the cream pie, Maine has lobster, Kentucky has the Colonel’s own fried chicken, and Rochester has a giant pile of meat, fried foods, macaroni salad, and then more meat. And ketchup!
Right. So you start off with what is supposed to be greasy homefries, but for which we substituted baked steak fries to alleviate some of our guilt. Alongside that you throw down half a pound of macaroni salad. Because who doesn’t need that much pasta and mayo?
Then you add two cheeseburgers that you’ve cooked on the griddle with the homefries (or, in our case, on the stove while the fries were baking). I pared it down to just one cheeseburger in the spirit of living through the night.
Then you dump that steaming hot sauce all over the entire plate, throw on some raw onion (for your serving of veggies, of course!), and add mustard and ketchup at will. If you’re in Rochester, you enjoy this last meal with a Gennessee Cream Ale, made from the finest waters of the Gennessee River, straight from the can. If you’re in Boston, you do it up right with a Shipyard Pumpkin Ale.
If you’re thinking, “Gross! That looks disgusting!”, you would be correct. The garbage plate is aptly named. It looks like a giant pile of meat on top of more meat. But! You should also be thinking, “God, that looks so awesome“, because each bite is like a little bit of western New York heaven, spicy and delicious.
I think what makes our dinner seem even more negligent to our health and well-being, though, is that we spent the entire day at the fair, where our diet consisted of apple crisp, caramel apples, fried pickles, lemonade, maple sugar cotton candy, and… a burger.
I KNOW.
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Urgh. The sight of a garbage plate (or my husband’s Thanksgiving dinner plate) makes my stomach churn because I just can’t take all of the food layering and touching like that. That is my biggest Food Thing, for sure.
blech…i could feel my arteries clogging just looking at that!
Cady stole my comment!
I am appalled, yet intrigued. Also, the garbage plate featured on Wikipedia has beans. I feel cheated that you did not add beans to your garbage plate, but also relieved that you are not dead.
If only there was a way to deep fry the entire plate.
Is it wrong that I find this a little yummy? I know, something must be wrong with me.
I think my heart just stopped. It’s the same feeling I had when I read the Nutrition Facts on Cheesecake Factory’s cheesecake.
But look at how much fiber is in it!
That’s how I rationalize everything. FIBER.
i’m supposed to say “gross” but there’s this little voice inside me that says, “i bet it’s sooooooo tasty”. what does that say about me?
NPW’s fact checking boyfriend to the rescue!
I’m calling you out for posting that misleading nutrition info. It was auto-calculated on some recipe site using all of the ingredients for the full recipe including the ENTIRE pot of hot sauce, as well as 4 fatty burgers, DEEP FRIED hash browns, and much more mac salad.
My version of the sauce used a much leaner cut of sirloin that I picked out and had the butcher grind. The other recipe calls for 70/30 or 80/20 taco bell grade beef (the burgers we used were lean 90/10). Also, we used those organic Trader Joe’s baked oven fries are not at all bad for you.
Really, the only nutritionally deviant portion of that entire meal was the mac salad. Next time I’ll probably make my own with light mayo rather than buying the super heavy stuff from the deli.
For some reason that looks kind of good to me. And I eat mainly vegetarian. Perhaps that’s why it looks good.
Ok maybe it wasn’t so much “fact checking” as it was a nutritional information adjustment.
Oh man, we were just explaining the garbage plate to Neil this weekend. He was amazed and disgusted, which I feel is the appropriate reaction. I’ve never have one, and I never well.
“most of the locations where one might procure them being places you might also be killed in a drive-by shooting”
Oh, so true.
OK, it does look really gross, but, usually the things that look the grossest taste the yummiest.
Even with Chris’ “adjustments,” I think my cholesterol went up just by reading that.
You’re back to the old template! Tired of the blue already?
Yup, that looks gross. But oddly delicious. And you just totally made me want to go to the fair.
After eating at the very wet, muddy, humid, gross fair that looks like why I have a belly ache. I am sure your version was much better and I now understand why you were reluctant to eat beef stew.
Mmmmm, that looks great, and Rochester sounds AWESOME.
Garbage plates will always remind me of Chris. Pat and I always got one red hot and one cheeseburger and share the plate, which was perfect if you ask me. What either Chris neglected to tell you or you neglected to mention is that you are also supposed to eat a couple slices of white Italian bread with butter with your plate. Yum!
I don’t know whether to run away in fear or want to know where I can get one of my own. It looks disturbingly good. You know, like a really hot serial killer (oh, Dexter, you’re so pretty).
The use of macaroni salad is most disturbing.
“lest you be dashed to death on the shores of caloric annihilation.”
Awesome.
I’ve heard of the garbage plate, but never of people hundreds of miles from Rochester actually going out of their way to create one themselves. And how is it that the south leads the nation in heart disease?
Hold on, NPW! I’m calling the paramedics! Not only will they bring their defibrillator but also the jaws of life. After eating that
messmeal, you will need help getting out of your jeans.Can something be both the grossest AND the most delicious thing ever at the same time? Because yeah. Garbage plate. Aptly named.
Oh. My. God. Surely health insurance rates are higher in Rochester with meals like that!
Ditto what Fran said: Rochester IS awesome!
But I think the biggest point has been missed here: these taste the most awesome after an evening of alcohol. And I mean, lots of alcohol. Somehow the nutrition factor goes out the window, along with all those other silly inhibitions
weROC
http://www.weroc.org
Noelle says “if only there was a way to deep fry the whole plate.”
Noelle, my friend, as a Southerner I can tell you there’s ALWAYS a way to deep fry anything.
First of all, I found your site from Kirsten’s. Second of all, you are hilarious. Third of all, I’ll never forget the “taste of Rochester” at the RIT dining hall my freshman year. I saw someone consume 3 garbage plates in an eating contest. He survived somehow, but didn’t eat dinner for two days afterwards.
I’m beginning to think the Garbage Plate is a mutant evolution of chili fries and loaded nachos.
Um…is it bad that I kind of want to try it?
Oddly, that actually looks sort of awesome.
Also, I am feeling a little less bad about my recent Chipotle and cheesecake day.
I hate to admit it…but that looks delicious.