Back in the days of the California Gold Rush, a prospector who had struck it rich went into the luxury hotel in a town called Hangtown, (yes, for that reason,) and asked for the most expensive thing on the menu. The cook in The Cary House Hotel looked around the kitchen and threw together the restaurant’s most expensive single ingredients: eggs, bacon, cheese, and oysters, frying them all together with potatoes. He called it the Hangtown Fry.
I learned this story from the New Orleans Menu Almanac, where Hangtown Fry was an Edible Dictionary Word of the Day. It struck my fancy and we have talked about it every year on the show when it turns up as the word of the day.
The name of the town has changed to something less macabre since those days. It is now called Placerville, and it is located outside of Sacramento. The Hangtown Fry is a little-known dish, but Tom and I ran into it in Bay St. Louis a year or two back at The Pearl Hotel. The owner and chef had to have heard about it from the show, so obscure it is. But it was a delicious omelet of all those things, with fried new potatoes and crispy oysters. He took some liberties with his version, adding Hollandaise Sauce.
I promised myself and the audience that if I ever found myself in Placerville I would go to The Buttercup Pantry, which is the only place that has served it in many years. The Cary House Hotel still operates as a haunted hotel, but the restaurant is long gone.
In this northern California road trip, Placerville was not even out of the way from Lake Tahoe to Napa. We stopped in this adorable town, where a tall marker stands in the spot where the hangings took place. The Buttercup Pantry is at the edge of town, and still operates 24/7. It is kitschy and worn and doesn’t smell the best, but my curiosity caused me to go in and order The Hangtown Fry.
While I waited I looked at the enormous menu, which is a compilation of American food from all over, including a seafood platter. I expected the oysters to be canned or some other nasty version of that ingredient, but the waitress told me they were shucking them in the back, that absolutely everything was made in house. Bakers come in and bake the beautiful pies fresh every night. The were serving Eggs Benedict to another couple, and suddenly I wasn’t afraid to keep my promise to myself and The Food Show audience.
It wasn’t long before the dish arrived in a black iron skillet. It looked like a gigantic scramble. The hash browns inside were the frozen kind I like from a diner. The bacon was actually the thick very good kind, cooked crisp and crumbled. And the oysters were fried and plentiful.
I would never get it again, but at least I can stop wondering about this dish, And I kept my promise to myself and the audience.
So, how did it taste? Like a breakfast scramble with something weird in it.
