March 7–14, 1996

food

Two Eggs Over Easy

Remembrance of breakfasts past at 30th Street Station.

By Gerald Weales

I cannot imagine that anyone who takes a train in Philadelphia regrets the transformation of 30th Street Station, the restoration of the place to some of its original elegance. Nor would most people — myself included — take exception to the idea of a food court with a wide variety of choices and a welcoming area where one can eat at a table without having to juggle ungainly snacks and hot portable potables on a lap that one is trying to keep clean for a business or romantic meeting in New York or Washington. Why then was I assailed a few weeks ago by a wave of nostalgia for the station of what I suppose we should think of as the bad old days?

I was making my unhurried way to New York, and I figured that if I missed the 11: 13, which I did, I could relax and read my paper over a sustaining lunch while I waited for the New England Express, on which I had a backup reservation. I was on the cusp, caught between breakfast and lunch, and my body signaled that it would like my favorite travel meal: two eggs over easy, bacon, home fries, toast and coffee.

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could have had a Thai nosh or a Greek one; seafood or shrimp salad, on or off a bun; a deli sandwich; an Italian hoagie; a cold pasta dish. I was assailed by muffins on all sides and in all sizes, and bagels winked their willingness to wear cream cheese for my delectation. At other times, on other occasions, I might have selected any of these (well, maybe not the cold pasta or the basketball-sized blueberry muffin), but my stomach had set its own priorities. I knew that there was no reason to go into McDonald's. The impenetrable gate between breakfast and lunch would already have fallen there, and, besides, that multi-layered McMuckey that Mickey D peddles to its presumably satisfied customers was certainly not what I had in mind.

It was at this point that I surfed the mass of material downloaded in my brain and called up an image — the memory of a menu that I had seen on the counter at Delilah's, the purveyor of downhome delicacies, which listed breakfast items prepared on the spot. And indeed the menu was there, promising me the cholesterol I craved — but the breakfasts were not. The man behind the counter, pouring a thick sauce over a panful of ribs, assured me that there were no breakfasts available. I never found out whether he meant at that time of day or on that particular day or ever. My mind had jumped to the only consolation that I could come up with — the ugly picture of egg yolk rolling across Styrofoam which reminded me that even if the breakfast I wanted had been there, it would not have been the breakfast I wanted. Egg yolk has to roll on china so that it can be dipped up with an edge of toast.

Because I am a messy feeder, ribs would have been a bad choice just before a train trip. I settled for something innocuous from the Thai stand and, as I picked at it disconsolately, I conjured the station of other days. There was a massive restaurant where one could always get a seat and where, on a lucky day, one could find B.A. Bergman, who had walked over from the Bulletin office for a leisurely cup of coffee, and who could be counted on for stories of his checkered journalistic past. Nostalgia for nostalgia.

Since there were seldom many customers in the restaurant, it was hardly surprising that it would finally have to close its doors. If I began to get sentimental about its end, I would sound like those people who lament the passing of Wanamaker's but who deserted the downtown store for the malls — or, for that matter, those who remember the Bulletin fondly, but who never bothered to buy or read it. Besides, the station restaurant was not that good. Although the conversation with Bergie may have been prime goods, the breakfast — particularly the coffee — was decidedly ordinary.

That could not be said of the other breakfast spot in the station. That was the drugstore. It had a long counter down its east wall, and, since everyone within shouting distance of the station seemed to know how good the food was there, it was often difficult to get a stool. But worth the wait, if the train schedule would allow you to wait. It could not have been the lack of customers that killed the lunch counter; it must have died of the cosmetic changes to the station.

It was the bacon and eggs from that counter that I wanted and knew I could not get. When I got on the train, there was a bad taste in my mouth, not so much from my Thai snack as from loss.