It’s been suggested by friends and followers alike that I should try heaving some crushing purple prose on the experience of dining at such Maine Mall restaurants as Olive Garden, Ruby Tuesday, Applebee’s and Cracker Barrel.  No thank you.  It would mean I’d have to eat at these national chains, which I’ve never had interest in doing. However, I made an exception once and went to Romano’s Macaroni Grill because their TV ad made the place look appetizing.  The experience ended any further curiosity. One exception. On Saturday morning I read a link in my inbox from the digital edition of the New York Times Magazine with an article titled “Letter of Recommendation: Cracker Barrel” by Jia Tolentino, noted as a first time contributor to the magazine.

Cracker Barrel, South Portland

Cracker Barrel, South Portland

It was an intensely moving essay deriding one of this country’s most popular chain restaurants (635 locations in 42 states). That they had been chided years before for outrageous discriminatory practices against blacks and gays might remain a distant memory to some who either didn’t care or wished not to so that they could covet the misconceived wholesomeness of Cracker Barrel—a polemic of bad taste and even worse food.

Still, sometimes nothing sounds better than old-fashioned American fare in restaurants where big plates of grub are served unadorned.  All of those roadside small-town diners, cafeterias and shacks plunge deep into the sweet consciousness of good home cooking. The most obvious examples in Maine are Moody’s Diner and the Maine Diner.

The classic Moody's diner; eggs and cheddarwurst, a popular breakfast plate

The classic Moody’s diner; eggs and cheddarwurst, a popular breakfast plate

But there’s so much more if you’re on the prowl for it. Thompson’s, for instance, in Bingham is where I once had the best liver, bacon and onions anywhere; the café at Nezinscot Farm in Turner has a great menu of real farm-to-table food; if you’re having one of their big, fluffy omelets there’s a sense of satisfaction when you see the chickens who hatched those eggs plucking about the brambles outside.  And one time I landed at the Flatlanda on Route 201 right off the Maine Turnpike in Fairfield on my way to pick up an item I bought at James D. Julia Auctioneers headquartered just down the road.  It was a memorable breakfast of creamy scrambled eggs with lusty baked beans, biscuits and country ham.  This place, like Cracker Barrel, has a gift shop holding endless bric-a-brac—dolls, trinkets and the like– hardly a perspicacious pack-rat collection in contrast to the wholesome no-frills menu of good simple cooking from its kitchen.

Fresh-baked bread at Thompson's; the sign at Flatlanda

Fresh-baked bread at Thompson’s; the sign at Flatlanda

Well why not give Cracker Barrel a shot?  I awoke early Saturday morning, ravenous and ripe for a hearty breakfast before starting my usual trek to farmers markets in Portland, Brunswick and Bath.

The retail store at Cracker Barrel, South Portland

The retail store at Cracker Barrel, South Portland

There are 10 Cracker Barrel restaurants within a 200-mile radius of Portland, Maine, and we have one right in our own backyard off Maine Mall Road in South Portland.  I’ve passed by it often enough and actually have a friend who swoons over the mere mention of this dining dragon.

I pulled into Cracker Barrel’s lot by 8 AM where the spaces in front of the restaurant are reserved for handicapped parking.  You then step onto an ersatz front porch with rocking chairs on which no one was sitting in the chill of this winter morning. Entering its vast retail space adjacent to the dining rooms, you’re hit with a glittering riot of kitsch– floor to ceiling displays of just plain junk. From candles and candies of all stripe, jars of maple syrup (not local) to jams, stuffed animals, kitchenware and frocks that even a déshabillé Barbie wouldn’t wear. It’s all beyond redemption.  In a changing world even the steadying reminder of these simple things don’t meet the minimum requirements of good taste and morals. The scene almost turned my stomach sour.

Merchandise overload at Cracker Barrel

Merchandise overload at Cracker Barrel

There are sales people lurking in every nook and cranny.  And I was greeted warmly by no less than three until the epicene host, with his penetrating stare,  led me into the dining room where I was told April would be my server.  I was shown to a  four-top dappled in sunlight.

I thought I would be pounced upon immediately, but it took a good 5 minutes for the demuring April  to arrive and take my breakfast order.

Menu intro at Cracker Barrel

Menu intro at Cracker Barrel

In the meantime, I studied the menu and thought the Old Timer’s Breakfast ($7.59) was the most representational.

As for the dogma of the chain itself, one line in the article described it perfectly: “If the veins of America are its Interstates, Cracker Barrel is a series of fat deposits gently stanching their flow.”

The dining rooms at Cracker Barrel, South Portland

The dining rooms at Cracker Barrel, South Portland

The Old Timer’s had it all:

Two eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find. Plus Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole and Choice of Smoked Sausage Patties, Thick-Sliced Bacon, Turkey Sausage or Turkey Bacon.

OMG if I didn’t leave the place in a gurney it was because I had already taken my daily dose of medications that keep the ills of middle age in check.

That it took about ten minutes for my food to be carried out of the kitchen didn’t mean that each morsel was painstakingly prepared from scratch.  The breakfast was scattered over several plates of food.  On one were the eggs over easy; there had been some confusion regarding my egg order when April asked if I wanted them runny or firm.  Doesn’t over easy say it all?

Array of dishes of the Old Timer's breakfast: eggs, bacon, grits, sawmill gravy, apple butter, biscuits, jam and butter

Array of dishes of the Old Timer’s breakfast: eggs, bacon, grits, sawmill gravy, apple butter, biscuits, jam and butter

Strangely when I broke into the yolks they barely ran as if stiff with rigamortis. The plate also held the bacon and the hash browns, moderately browned.  They were cooked and creamy but lacked any flavor whatsoever.  My CB-maven friend said I should have ordered the casserole version, which has cheese and other “stuff” in the dish. The so-called thick rashers of bacon were rubbery and tasteless as though zapped in an ancient radar range.

The one highlight was the buttermilk biscuits.  These can be stored frozen and remain flaky and tender when baked.  They were fine biscuits.  But the “real” butter came out of a foil container and the “best preserves” were no better than pectin and sugar water.

Perhaps the most egregiously uneatable dishes were the Sawmill gravy, the grits and the apple butter.  The “sawmill” referred to a sausage gravy that was hopelessly gelatinous; the grits tasted as though they’d come from an expired box of instant farina and the apple butter bordered on being a crush of dingleberries.

Clockwise: grits, Sawmill gravy and biscuits; jam and butter, bacon, eggs and hash browns

Clockwise: grits, Sawmill gravy and biscuits; jam and butter, bacon, eggs and hash browns

There are many chain restaurants in the south and Midwest that feature home-style cooking of modest goodness like the very popular Waffle House, a huge 2100-plus chain that specializes in home-style cooking.

The original Cracker Barrel opened in 1969 as a general store attached to a Shell gas station in Lebanon, Tennessee. Nearly 50 years later dining at any of these is, alas,  best amended by a full-spectrum colon cleanser.