Lunch at the Grey Bros Cafeteria is an experience in belt loosening midwestern goodness. I get in line after recovering from the oddly creepy sensation of entering a room filled with two hundred white people. (Remember, I live in Los Angeles, the most integrated city in America. We just don't have rooms full of white people.) It feels like an odd inversion of the scene in Animal House where they go to the black nightclub. It is odder still because I am the only one creeped out. (For those of you who may not know me personally, at this point I should confess to being Caucasian.)
Turning back from digression to digestion; Hoosier Chicken is fried chicken enrobed in a softball sized lump of chicken gravy. The gravy is so thick that calling it chicken pudding would really be more accurate. The crispy coating of the chicken sops up the gravy and becomes a deliciously soft chicken ambrosia. It has that unmistakable muted cafeteria taste, no sharp flavor's or unruly spices, but rich and delicious nonetheless. The slaw is mild and just slightly tart, flecked with a seed that manages to be simultaneously tasty and indiscernible. (Celery seed? Too small for Craway Seeds...)
The vegetables appear to come from the massive central cookery where all cafeteria veggies sold in the US are made. The only discernible difference to southern cafeteria / boarding house veggies is the absence of bacon fat.
I closed out the meal with a slab of butterscotch pie, and washed it down with endless glasses of unsweetened iced tea.
A totally delicious meal, and once again lunch keeps me full through breakfast the next day.
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