The first meal I ever ate in Boulder was a bowl of bean chili at Shannon’s Saloon, a long-gone biker bar and music venue on Pearl Street between 7th and 8th. It wasn’t a gourmet feast, but I remember every detail because of the moment.
Through the decades I’ve lived in and around Boulder, I have marked the important moments of my life with meals at restaurants and around home tables with friends, employers, family and famous folks.
We might have been separated by faith, politics and culture, but everybody eats, and most of us shop for food and cook meals. We all sit around tables to dine and create community. That makes food the perfect lens through which to view our lives, especially in Boulder County with its delicious and revealing food trail over the past 150-plus years.
A history nerd since I was a kid, I am by choice (and sheer longevity) the unofficial food historian for Boulder County. I’ve chronicled our food life from 1985 as the food editor of the Daily Camera to today as the Boulder Weekly’s food columnist and during 30-plus years as the producer of Radio Nibbles on KGNU.
That’s why I am delighted to be named the exhibit historian for Boulder Eats! Food Traditions along the Front Range, an expansive exhibit opening at the Museum of Boulder in November. I will be assisting Exhibits Curator Elizabeth Nosek and museum staff in telling the amazing stories about restaurants, farms, food products and home kitchens — and the diverse peoples who made and enjoyed the meals.
The Boulder Eats! exhibit will highlight everything from pioneer times to more recent history: Boulder being named America’s Foodiest Town by Bon Appetit in 2010, to current eateries being showered with national accolades.
Boulder was never all about being “gourmet.” Did you know that McDonald’s Happy Meal was partially perfected in Boulder, and that fast-casual fare — think Noodles & Company and Chipotle — was born on the Front Range.
Boulder is home to an acclaimed farmers market, and it was one of the first American cities to form a Slow Food chapter (a global movement that promotes local food, traditional cooking and sustainable agriculture). Boulder is widely acknowledged as the Silicon Valley of both the American craft brew renaissance and the natural foods industry.
Unearthing evidence of our culinary past
Boulder Eats! will showcase hundreds of objects, menus, signs and photos in the Museum of Boulder collection, including an array of artifacts from the legendary Juanita’s Mexican restaurant. (Their slogan, “Praise the Lard” was plastered on everything from bumper stickers to t-shirts.)
I have contributed my extensive collection of cookbooks published over the past 100-plus years in Boulder County by churches, community groups and chefs. The recipes in those volumes reveal what locals actually ate from the late 1800s to present day.
The portion of the exhibit devoted to dining will remind visitors of landmark eating destinations like Chautauqua Dining Hall and others that have stood the test of time, including Falafel King. The retrospective ranges from groundbreaking health food havens like the Carnival Cafe and The Harvest to the eateries that introduced Boulder to international cuisines: the Indo-Ceylon Restaurant, New Saigon and Mataam Fez, etc.
There are still bowlfuls delicious history yet to be uncovered. When were the first Chinese and Indian restaurants opened in Boulder? Who served the first tacos, pizza, barbecue, espresso and granola?
Many of the answers and artifacts are hidden away in garages, basements and restaurant storage units in Colorado and elsewhere. These Boulder food historical items — signs, vintage merchandise, dishes, menus, images and antique kitchen equipment — help tell the story of community dining spots, farms, bakeries and stores and the people who operated them.
Make chopped liver like Mork
Open from the mid-1970s until 1999, the New York Deli was famously spotlighted in the TV series Mork and Mindy starring the late Robin Williams. This recipe was featured in the 1995 Taste of Boulder cookbook, part of a restaurant hunger relief tasting event at CU’s Glen Miller Ballroom.
New York Deli's Chopped Liver
3 tablespoons schmaltz (chicken fat) or butter
1 onion, chopped
5 pounds chicken livers (rinsed and patted dry)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 tablespoons sugar
6 hard boiled eggs, peeled
Sauté onion in schmaltz or butter in a large pan. Add liver, garlic, pepper and sugar. Cook for about 30 minutes. Spread on the tray to cool. Process in the food processor, gradually adding the eggs.
Chill before serving.