Of small holes and the mixing of species

When I spend time by the ocean, with gray weather, in a town with commercial fishing, I get a craving for good clam chowder. According to reports, the Good Harvest Cafe in Crescent City has some chowder worth going in and sitting down with silverware and such, like a normal person, instead of grabbing and going like the dude of dubious character that I am.

The chowder looked perfectly delicious, but few people like it (or sausage gravy) as peppery as I do. So I reached for the shaker and… Not this again.

About 50 years ago coarse-ground pepper became a thing. Oooo, it’s as if the waiter ground the pepper right there at your table (which had also become a thing). It’s like I’m in Paris, France, instead of Paris, Kentucky. How sophisticated!

The problem is nearly every restaurant uses identical salt and pepper shakers, with identically sized holes. Some places (where people must be pepper averse) use pepper shakers with a single hole. These holes were fine in the fine-ground pepper days, but now the coarse-ground pepper resists passing through onto my chowder.

Shake shake shake shake shake shake jiggle jiggle shake shake shake… argh.

Time to unscrew the top, pour some pepper into my hand, then distribute it in pinches.

You would think that after a half century the restauranteurs and their suppliers would have come up with larger holed pepper shakers. But that would mean the extra work of keeping the empty shakers sorted.

Anyway, yes, very good chowder. Very good garlic bread as well. Thumbs up for Good Harvest Cafe.

And, of course, my clam chowder also came with oyster crackers. Yes please. But then I got thinking… oysters… clams… Both bivalve mollusks, but different species. Why aren’t there clam crackers? And mussel crackers? And scallop crackers? Hey, cracker companies, there’s a product expansion opportunity here! There’s money to be had! Ooo-ooo, and crackers loaded with pepper! Take my money!