This article appeared in the Sunday LA Times. At the end, I have included the grapefruit cake receipe. If anyone decides to make it, let me know how it tastes.
We’ll Always Have Chasen’s
Hollywood’s Golden Age really was glamorous. The menus—and recipes—of its hot spots are the proof.
By Charles Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Hollywood isn't exactly having its most glamorous moment this hobbled awards season. Even if the Academy Awards go on this month as planned, there will be no post-Oscars Vanity Fair bash at Mortons--because Mortons is no more (it closed in December). Soho House, the tony members-only club with locations in London and New York, plans to open here this year, but who knows whether it'll take off with any kind of glamour quotient? Or how the food will be?
What we do know is that old Hollywood ate well during its Golden Age, the 1940s and '50s. The Cocoanut Grove's glittering crowd ordered chicken breast under glass and shad roe en papillote with duxelles. Ciro's offered sardines Cote d'Azur. Chasen's scrupulously sourced its ingredients: Columbia River salmon, Colorado mountain trout, Minnesota veal, Michigan frog legs. Any place worth its salt served boula boula, a mixture of turtle soup and pur?©ed green peas.
It hadn't always been this way. Not too many years before, many stars, like their fans, had frequented restaurants that offered simple dishes without much flair. The Brown Derby's original 1926 menu featured hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, chili, tamales and pancakes. And when Chasen's opened 10 years later, it served chili, barbecued spareribs and . . . well, that was about it. These places were essentially simpatico hangouts, having been opened by colleagues in the biz--Derby founder Herbert Somborn was a producer, and Dave Chasen had been a comic's straight man.
But the stars had started to raise their sights. The restaurants responded: The Derby began offering sweetbreads Parisienne, Norwegian-style broiled fish and "unusual Chinese dishes served with their native wines."
No matter how Continental they became, though, Chasen's and the Brown Derby never entirely abandoned comfort foods. You could still get chicken pot pie, ham and Swiss on rye, matzo ball soup and pot roast. At the Brown Derby they were presented on Blue Willow china by a waiter in a monkey suit. Call it haute homey.
The best-known comfort food in town was Chasen's chili, which Dave Chasen had developed while traveling on the vaudeville circuit. In 1940, it dropped off the printed menu, but everybody knew you could still order it. (Years later, in a famous display of long-range food obsession, Elizabeth Taylor requested that the chili be sent to her in Rome, where she was filming "Cleopatra.") In fact, the recipe itself was a dark secret. When Eleanor Roosevelt asked for it, Chasen declined and sent her a complimentary order instead. To protect the secret, he would make the chili on Sundays, when nobody was around.
But because people yearned to know what celebrities were eating, the restaurants did divulge some of their recipes. One of the most famous was the Brown Derby's grapefruit cake. Owner Bob Cobb conceived it when gossip columnist Louella Parsons threatened not to return until he put a nonfattening dessert on the menu. He told his cooks, "Put grapefruit on something, because everyone knows it's slimming." The result was an original and outstanding cake. We've updated it a bit, using fresh grapefruit segments instead of canned and grapefruit zest and juice instead of lemon. It's a sweet reminder of how Los Angeles restaurants, particularly the celebrity spots, have long defined us.
Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake
Serves 12 to 16
21/4 cups sifted cake flour
1¬? cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
¬? cup corn oil
1¬? teaspoons grated grapefruit zest
2 teaspoons vanilla
8 egg whites
¬? teaspoon cream of tartar
Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk together in a large bowl the egg yolks, oil, ¾ cup water, zest and vanilla. Gently but thoroughly whisk the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until the batter is smooth. In another large bowl, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff peaks are formed. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter, a third at a time, until they are blended. Be careful not to overmix. Pour the batter into two 10-inch cake pans lined on the bottom with parchment. Bake the cakes at 325 degrees for 55 minutes until golden and the tops spring back when touched. Invert the cake pans on a rack to cool. When cool, loosen the sides and remove the cake layers.
We’ll Always Have Chasen’s
Hollywood’s Golden Age really was glamorous. The menus—and recipes—of its hot spots are the proof.
By Charles Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Hollywood isn't exactly having its most glamorous moment this hobbled awards season. Even if the Academy Awards go on this month as planned, there will be no post-Oscars Vanity Fair bash at Mortons--because Mortons is no more (it closed in December). Soho House, the tony members-only club with locations in London and New York, plans to open here this year, but who knows whether it'll take off with any kind of glamour quotient? Or how the food will be?
What we do know is that old Hollywood ate well during its Golden Age, the 1940s and '50s. The Cocoanut Grove's glittering crowd ordered chicken breast under glass and shad roe en papillote with duxelles. Ciro's offered sardines Cote d'Azur. Chasen's scrupulously sourced its ingredients: Columbia River salmon, Colorado mountain trout, Minnesota veal, Michigan frog legs. Any place worth its salt served boula boula, a mixture of turtle soup and pur?©ed green peas.
It hadn't always been this way. Not too many years before, many stars, like their fans, had frequented restaurants that offered simple dishes without much flair. The Brown Derby's original 1926 menu featured hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, chili, tamales and pancakes. And when Chasen's opened 10 years later, it served chili, barbecued spareribs and . . . well, that was about it. These places were essentially simpatico hangouts, having been opened by colleagues in the biz--Derby founder Herbert Somborn was a producer, and Dave Chasen had been a comic's straight man.
But the stars had started to raise their sights. The restaurants responded: The Derby began offering sweetbreads Parisienne, Norwegian-style broiled fish and "unusual Chinese dishes served with their native wines."
No matter how Continental they became, though, Chasen's and the Brown Derby never entirely abandoned comfort foods. You could still get chicken pot pie, ham and Swiss on rye, matzo ball soup and pot roast. At the Brown Derby they were presented on Blue Willow china by a waiter in a monkey suit. Call it haute homey.
The best-known comfort food in town was Chasen's chili, which Dave Chasen had developed while traveling on the vaudeville circuit. In 1940, it dropped off the printed menu, but everybody knew you could still order it. (Years later, in a famous display of long-range food obsession, Elizabeth Taylor requested that the chili be sent to her in Rome, where she was filming "Cleopatra.") In fact, the recipe itself was a dark secret. When Eleanor Roosevelt asked for it, Chasen declined and sent her a complimentary order instead. To protect the secret, he would make the chili on Sundays, when nobody was around.
But because people yearned to know what celebrities were eating, the restaurants did divulge some of their recipes. One of the most famous was the Brown Derby's grapefruit cake. Owner Bob Cobb conceived it when gossip columnist Louella Parsons threatened not to return until he put a nonfattening dessert on the menu. He told his cooks, "Put grapefruit on something, because everyone knows it's slimming." The result was an original and outstanding cake. We've updated it a bit, using fresh grapefruit segments instead of canned and grapefruit zest and juice instead of lemon. It's a sweet reminder of how Los Angeles restaurants, particularly the celebrity spots, have long defined us.
Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake
Serves 12 to 16
21/4 cups sifted cake flour
1¬? cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
¬? cup corn oil
1¬? teaspoons grated grapefruit zest
2 teaspoons vanilla
8 egg whites
¬? teaspoon cream of tartar
Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk together in a large bowl the egg yolks, oil, ¾ cup water, zest and vanilla. Gently but thoroughly whisk the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until the batter is smooth. In another large bowl, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff peaks are formed. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter, a third at a time, until they are blended. Be careful not to overmix. Pour the batter into two 10-inch cake pans lined on the bottom with parchment. Bake the cakes at 325 degrees for 55 minutes until golden and the tops spring back when touched. Invert the cake pans on a rack to cool. When cool, loosen the sides and remove the cake layers.
