In Depth Review: Gas Station Food

On April 1st, in the spirit of great culinary adventures, I decided to tackle America’s most overlooked cuisine: the gas station:

A few years ago, food critic and Gourmet Magazine editor Ruth Reichl published her “Never List” of words that should never be used in a review. I am proud to say I used them all here. I also broke almost all of William Zinsser’s guidelines for good writing. Though I also channeled the adjective overabundance of ex-Oregonian reviewer Karen Brooks, the abundance of cliché came naturally to me.]

It wasn’t long ago when I took my first hesitant steps into the world of mini-mart cuisine. I was driving from Los Angeles to Portland—nighttime, audiobook playing, seat reclined just enough to be dangerous. The problem with night drives is simple: boredom turns into sleepiness. Rest stops are full of strange men in sweatpants, so my preferred break is the ubiquitous glow of a gas station. Something about fluorescent lights, sticky tile, and dirty restrooms jolts me awake.

On this particular trip, hunger gnawed at me. I hadn’t eaten all day, so when I pushed through the swinging glass doors and onto the gleaming black-and-white tile floor, it hit me: I needed to review this cuisine with the seriousness it deserves.

Act I: The Seduction

There are three urges I fight in a gas station:

1. Run back out.
2. Nachos.
3. Hot dogs.

Normally, I just get coffee—sometimes McDonald’s, though I usually sabotage myself by adding fries, then wake up later with a sun-warmed French fry behind my ear like a dog’s sloppy kiss. Tonight, no fries. I had a timetable. And so, inevitably, I was pulled into the orbit of the mini-mart.

The coffee bar was nothing short of divine revelation. Hazelnut? French Vanilla? Half-cappuccino, half-hazelnut-cinnamon-coffee with a reckless shot of vanilla-nut syrup? Yes, yes, and yes. The pricing system was simple: just like bras, the bigger the cup, the more it costs.

But the nachos—ah, the nachos. A cardboard boat, filled with industrial-grade corn chips, smothered in a velvety, glowing elixir from the cheese pump. The warm handle comforted my palm as iridescent yellow cascaded onto the chips. Jalapeños glittered like flat emeralds cut by a blind jeweler.

In moments, I had the lovely little cardboard container of chips in my hand and liberally dosed it with the velvety elixir they call cheese. It was a tactile intimacy I hadn’t experienced since middle school slow dances. Iridescent yellow oozed from the spout and over the chips. Little jalapenos were in a container on the side, and when I sprinkled them over the melty-cheesy top, they glittered like little green emeralds, except they were flat and had holes and seeds in them. Within minutes, I was back on the road, steering with my knees, nachos perched precariously on my lap, speeding northward into the starry night.

The overall experience was better than I expected. I was listening to an appropriate book: “Not Becoming My Mother” by Ruth Reichl. The nachos were warm as if there was a cat on my lap, the chips sticking together like five Girl Scouts lost in the woods, but in a more satisfying way. At one point, Ruth’s reading made me laugh out loud, and I started choking on a slightly soggy chip. It wasn’t a pretty scene – careening back and forth in my lane, trying to keep the nachos balanced, while clearing the chip lodged in my gullet. I grabbed my 1/2 French vanilla cappuccino and 1/2 hazelnut cinnamon coffee with a shot of vanilla nut syrup to try to wash the chip down, but my drink was scalding, and feeling as though I was fighting for my life, I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway.

The car wasn’t pretty either. Nachos were everywhere, cheese making my hair into a style I’d never seen before, with a mousse effect not unlike the way gum on hot pavement adheres to the bottom of a rubber-soled tennis shoe. Sticky coffee ran down the dashboard into the cracks like little brown creeks. It didn’t help that the strangely butyraceous pool of oil that had suddenly appeared in the cardboard nacho holder was soaking through my pants. Worse, I’d forgotten napkins, and my steering wheel was slick with fear and nacho grease. I suddenly didn’t like Ms. Reichl very much, and certainly wouldn’t recommend her book to anyone.

Fortunately, I could see the glow of the next gas station just down the road, so I didn’t have to go far to clean up.

The guy behind the counter at that mini-mart acted like someone walking in with my appearance was a daily occurrence, so I sauntered to the restroom pretending nothing was wrong. I couldn’t get the cheese out of my hair, but there was an old comb balanced on the edge of the sink, and I used that to slick it back. It wasn’t until I was walking out that the dark hand of fate knocked on my door.

And then I saw them: the hot dogs, glistening, denuded, rotating on rollers like sunburnt tourists on a Cancun beach. I had fantasies about that woman then, and I was having a fantasy about this hot dog now. One called to me. A siren. A sea-nymph on the hot rocks of the quick mart. I gave in.

I peered at them carefully. They were plump, but not unnaturally so, oily, but not tired. Nervously, I cleared my coffee-scarred throat and asked the attendant for one. He looked at me like I was pointing a gun at him. “You want… a hot dog?” he asked incredulously. It catapulted me into my distant past when, in college, I had nervously walked into a gas station, determined to buy a Playboy, but chickened out at the last minute and bought a pack of cigarettes instead – and I didn’t smoke.

The attendant’s disbelief—“You… want a hot dog?”—was almost too much. I nodded bravely. Minutes later, the meat trembled in my hand. I dressed it with nothing more than a single ribbon of ketchup, a minimalist cocaine line across a Jaguar’s rear-view mirror. I know what you are thinking, dear reader, but don’t be too quick to judge. You know you’ve thought of it; fantasized of a stolen moment when you could grab a gas station hot dog and sneak around the back of the building to claim your prize without the dark eyes of your wife and family judging you. I was alone – no witnesses.

The “meat” trembled in my hand as I gently laid it onto the hood of my car. Its taut skin whispered promises of smoky secrets, while its bun clung desperately like a silk slip on a humid night. I wanted it dressed in minimalist attire, so I chose to add nothing but the briefest smear of catsup. I picked it up and bit down. The bun tearing my lips, oil coating my tongue, a rush of flavors that annihilated the nacho experience. And yet—something was missing. Mustard. Always mustard. Remember that, dear reader.

Act II: The Downfall

Here’s the thing about road trip coffee: it always teaches you something. Lesson one—spill it, and the windshield fogs. Lesson two—coffee in the dashboard vents eventually comes back out. At 65 mph, I blasted the defroster and was rewarded with a Venturi-effect spray of lukewarm coffee mist, coating my windshield, my glasses, my shirt. For a moment, I looked like an exhausted mahout, riding the back of the last elephant in a long line.

Lesson three: nachos + hot dog + XXL half-vanilla, half-hazelnut coffee = deleterious effects best left undescribed. All I’ll say is I saw a sign reading Next gas, 38 miles, and I made it in 26.

I won’t go into the explicit details of lesson number three, except to say that the combined force of gas station nachos, a hot dog without mustard, and one very large 1/2 French vanilla cappuccino and 1/2 hazelnut cinnamon coffee with a shot of vanilla nut syrup will combine to deleterious effect. (Interesting side note: if you are checking the spelling of “deleterious” in the dictionary, Webster uses the word in the following example: “injurious to health: deleterious gases”. I’ll just say it’s an apt description.) Of course, it was at that moment that I cruised past a sign: “Next gas, 38 miles”. I made it in 26 minutes.

Act III: The Redemption

Cleanup required another gas station. The attendant barely blinked at my cheese-crusted hair, as though customers like me stumbled in hourly. In the restroom, I slicked my hair back with an abandoned comb. Fate intervened again: stomach pain, a shiny Slushy machine burbling nearby. Cold, icy, purple—it seemed the antidote. For balance, I bought Red Vines and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, just as I once did at summer camp with a fistful of tickets and big dreams.

On the road again, I savored my amuse-bouche of peanut butter cups, the chocolate yielding to a mound of peanut-like filling that reminded me of my home recipe: dip finger in peanut butter, top with Hershey’s Kiss, insert in mouth. A rustic dish, yes, but divine. The main course, a purple Slushy—brash yet sophisticated, icy enough to induce brain freeze, sinfully divine in its artificiality.

By Salem, the city lights twinkled, Ruth Reichl was no doubt checking her Amazon rankings, and my April Fool’s feast had reached its bittersweet close.

The Scores:

Nachos

• Pros: crunchy, crispy, crusty, addictive.
• Cons: cheese flavor is fulsome yet lacks complexity.
• Grade: C

Hot Dog

• Pros: dramatic reinterpretation of an American classic.
• Cons: ketchup packet nearly impenetrable; buns dangerously slick.
• Grade: C

Coffee

• Pros: like college when you’re stoned and the barista is you.
• Cons: like college when you’re stoned and the barista is you.
• Grade: C

Peanut Butter Cups

• Pros: astonishing in detail, indulgent, toothsome.
• Cons: sugar coma risk on long drives.
• Grade: C