The Press Herald interviewed Steve Shamos about his family’s decades long ownership of Quality Shop on Stevens Ave, and his decision to sell the business and let “some young people to take over”.
Shamos’ grandfather, Elias Shamos, a Greek immigrant who moved to Portland from Brockton, Massachusetts, bought the shop from another owner in 1945. Shamos’ father, Steve, then took over, moving the Quality Shop next door to its current location at 473 Stevens Ave. in the 1970s.
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Cumberland resident Tom Foley has written about his memories of Forest Gardens bar in the 1960s.
The Sox and Celtics reigned. Fifteen-cent draught beer, usually Narragansett or Pabst Blue Ribbon, was served in 8-ounce fluted glasses. Frequent refills ensured that the beer was always fresh and cold. Six-ounce “dimeys” were also available, as were 10-cent bottles of “Little Bo Colts,” a National Bohemian brand associated with the Baltimore Colts. Most patrons were Giants fans, but who could resist a 10-cent bottle of beer when short of cash?
A new book titled Built on Family about the India Street Italian-American community is now on sale at Anania’s on Congress Street.
It includes a chapter on the food traditions of the neighborhood and the area’s Italian owned restaurants and groceries including Amato’s, Anania’s, Micucci’s, Commercial Fruit, the Village Cafe, Taliento Suprette, Sangillo’s, Cremo’s Bakery, and Al’s Lunch. The book also includes hints of a possible alternative origination story for the Ham Italian sandwich.
You can read more about the book and author Jamie Carter Logan on the CreateSpace website,
“Built on Family” covers the physical neighborhood, the importance of the local Church, the immigration patterns, home life, and the establishment of businesses. It traces how family and kinship were present in all activities – a trait brought over from Italy and not distinct from other Italian settlements in the United States.
With personal interviews conducted by the author intermingled with census research and photos, the book uses humorous and touching stories to bring historical data to life.
In November 1964 LBJ had just defeated Goldwater, the Sardine Law was front page news, and famed chef and food writer James Beard visited Portland to lead a 4-day series of cooking demonstrations organized by the Portland Symphony Orchestra as a fundraising activity for their 1964-65 season.
Reporter Hazel Loveitt from the Press Herald along with “more than 200 women and two men” (Brunswick chef Pete Doyon and home cook Harry Dunbar) were on site for the first day of classes. Loveitt reported,
Beard’s heroic proportions belied his agility as he did a culinary ballet between the stove, oven and food preparation. When he added “about a half teaspoon” of vanilla to the filling he was making for apple flan the master chef dispensed the flavoring directly from the bottle to the cooking pan with the flair of a showman.
While using the slim handleless French rolling pin to roll the tart flan Beard explained that the pin was easier to guide than the more common rolling pin.
An earlier version of the article was certainly a product of the times. President Kennedy has delivered his famous challenge for a moon landing 2 years earlier, and the article referred to the rolling pin as a “slim space-aged model”.
The town was still in the afterglow of Beard’s visit several day later when the paper published a follow-on piece which concluded “All calories aside, we’ve been living in a gastronomical Shangri-La.”
Beard was assisted with the classes by Ruth Norman and they were held at the State Street Church. Their entire series of 5 classes went for $12 per person. Accounting for inflation that would be $91 in today’s dollars—a bargain in any decade.
A half century later few people in town remember Beard’s visit, but as luck would have it one of few artifacts of that week, a booklet from Beard’s classes (shown above), came into the possession of Rabelais Books, and owner Don Lindgren brought it to my attention. It contains 34 pages of recipes from the classes. They’re an interesting mix of French, Italian, American and Asian cooking such as Salad Nicoise, Shish Kebab, Rummed Crab Spread, Cannelloni, Crepes Duxelles, Barbecued Spareribs and Fried Rice.
Many thanks to PSO historian Hank Schmidtt and to the Symphony for their assistance in researching this article.
Cross West Bayside on Oxford Street and you’re likely to spot this old sign for the former Amergian Brothers neighborhood market at the intersection with Chestnut Street. It was founded by George Amergian in 1928 in what was then the Armenian neighborhood in Portland. The market remained in business until the beginning of the 21st century and was for many year’s run by his nephew Edward Mardigan.
Here’s an artifact from Portland’s culinary past, a banquet menu for an 1888 dinner of the local association of drugstore owners. 8 courses which included oysters, beef tenderloin, baked pike, lobster and saddle of venison.
The menu is from the collections at Rabelais Books in Biddeford.
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an article (part 2 of 2) about the history of the Portland Farmers’ Market.
Over the centuries, the market rose and fell, and rose again, along with the fortunes of the city. Over the market’s 246-year lifespan, it has moved at least half a dozen times, operated indoors and out, sometimes at multiple locations, and has almost been extinguished by industrial agriculture and the popularity of supermarkets.
You can read part 1 of this article online.
Today’s Press Herald includes a front page article about Gritty’s 25 years in business and the impact they’ve had on Maine’s craft beer industry.
“Yeah, I’d say [Dave] Geary and those guys ([Gritty’s co-founders] Stebbins and Pfeffer) were sort of the godfathers of Maine brewing, and today the scene is just so filled with talented people, very small outfits finding a niche for themselves,” said Houghton, who also runs The Liberal Cup brew pub in Hallowell. “The main reason I’m in Maine is because of Gritty McDuff’s.”
Bangor Daily News and publisher of The Bollard has also written about Gritty’s 25 anniversary in his weekly column.
Together with David Geary, Dave Evans of The Great Lost Bear, and Alan Eames of Three Dollar Dewey’s, Gritty’s founders Richard Pfeffer and Ed Stebbins deserve a significant amount of credit for the scores of breweries, thousands of jobs and millions of dollars the microbrew movement has brought to Maine since the 1980s. For that alone, Pfeffer and Stebbins deserve the key to the city and a big bear hug from Gov. Paul LePage…
Gritty’s 25th Anniversary Party is taking place at 4pm today at their Portland location.
Today’s Press Herald includes an interesting article about the Maine Historical Society’s collection of old menus,
Remember The Roma Cafe, known for ages as “Portland’s most romantic restaurant” and the place you had to take your date on Valentine’s, or else suffer the consequences?
There are also menus for Hu Shang on Exchange Street and the Victory Deli in Monument Square (where Foley’s Bakery is now), both former frequent lunch spots for Press Herald reporters. At the end of the day, when we wanted a cocktail, we went down to Cotton Street Cantina. (On the menu, it’s called Cotton Street Tropical Grill and Bar.)
and passing reference to recommended changes to the food truck regulations (at the very end of the article) made by the Health and Human Services Committee.
The changes would allow food trucks to cluster in certain zones by eliminating a rule that trucks be at least 65 feet from each other. And operators would have to pay only $30 for a permit to operate on private property, rather than $105.
Maine magazine has posted an article about J’s Oyster Bar that appeared in the July issue.
On the stool to my right sits a slight man in a baseball cap with a gray mustache who tells me, “I was here on opening night back in 1977!” The man is Frank Kimball. He is 75 years old, grew up on Peaks Island, and is a former Navy sailor, postman, drag racer, and husband. He doesn’t eat oysters, but he loves the scallop casserole. “You got to get it,” he says. “The atmosphere is 90 percent of the reason I come here. The rest is the scallop casserole.”