LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Ah, Germantown, that lovable little urban neighborhood. Who can drive, stroll or bike through its tidy streets of shotgun houses and sturdy brick storefronts without feeling connected with our city’s German heritage?
Don’t look too closely, though. Back in the day - way back in the day, the 1840s - a tide of German immigrants (and, a bit later, their Irish cousins) washed over Louisville, whose earlier first families, established and conservative folks of English stock, didn’t particularly welcome them.
The Germans ate funny food that reeked of cabbage. They drank beer, for God’s sake. And they spoke an odd, guttural language. What’s more, they were Catholic, and as refugees from Old Europe’s wars and kings, they were thought politically radical.
Many of them settled in Butchertown, where on one of the city’s darkest days, “Bloody Monday” on Aug. 6, 1855, nativist Know-Nothing Party crowds celebrated a hot gubernatorial election by rioting, beating up German and Irish immigrants and setting fire to their houses, outraged by their audacity at planning to vote for the wrong guy.
It’s no surprise that the Germans soon decided to settle in a new neighborhood a bit farther southeast, where they could mind their own business. Never mind if it was so swampy and dank that people called the area “Frogtown,” it was their own.
It’s worth thinking about all this, the next time you settle down in the amiable precincts of Eiderdown, or many of its Germantown neighbors.
These friendly confines feel as if they’ve been around forever. The neighborhood is more trendy now, and more diverse. But listen, and I’m pretty sure you can still hear the voices of the old Germans. They’re probably saying, “Ach, ja! Get the duuuck faaat popcooorn.”
Now, in fairness, Eiderdown’s management makes one thing perfectly clear: “Eiderdown is not a German restaurant,” its Web page insists in all-caps type. “‘German food" is one of our many inspirations, but not the sole basis of what we do.”
All right, Eiderdown, we’ll bite. What do you do? Wait for it: “Categorize us any way you like; European-inspired Southern food is what we had in mind.”
Personally, I’d define Eiderdown’s fare pretty much as I’d define Germantown itself: American, indebted to Louisville’s assimilated German heritage. Expect dishes made with quality, local meats and produce, accented with the “country” cookery brought by Louisville’s other immigrants - the rural Kentuckians and Hoosiers who’ve made the city their home.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/is-ei ... own-german
and in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/eiderdown-g ... own-german
Eiderdown
983 Goss Ave.
290-2390
http://eiderdown-gtown.com
http://facebook.com/pages/Eiderdown/174237679257516
Robin Garr’s rating: 90 points