My town, Rochester N.Y., was once a bustling, high-tech manufacturing center; the home of Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, Gleasons, and a couple of medium-sized GM plants. But as in many other Rust Belt cities, the manufacturing presence is pretty much history at this point. The largest employers are now the two hospital/health care systems and the Wegmans supermarket chain (company headquarters are located here), with a bunch of colleges, public school districts, and many low-paying service and retail companies bringing up the rear.
Rochester can’t boast about much these days, but it is home to the world famous “Garbage Plate” (see top photo). In fact, the city is currently in the midst of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the delectable dish.
What’s that? You ask what exactly is a Garbage Plate?!?! Are you kidding me?!?! Okay, okay. I apologize. Let me take a step back and explain this gourmet jewel to all of you unfortunate non-Rochesterians.
Well, way back in 1918, Greek immigrant, Alex Tahou (correctly pronounced tah-HOO although it’s generally pronounced as TAH-ho), opened his greasy spoon, Tahou’s Diner (later named, “Nick Tahou’s Hots,” in honor of his son), and at some point began serving a plate he called “hots and potats” consisting of two hot dogs over heaps of home fries and macaroni salad (or baked beans), all smothered with a grease-laden, ground beef-based hot sauce and topped with chopped raw onions and mustard and ketchup. Two hamburgers or cheeseburgers rather than hot dogs became another option later on. I had my first introduction to “hots and potats” in 1977 thanks to Duane “Big D” Hedman after we had worked a Saturday morning overtime shift at Kodak’s old Elmgrove Plant.
In the 1980s, college students kept coming into Nick’s and ordering “that dish with all the garbage on it,” so the plate was officially renamed “The Garbage Plate.”
Imitations sprang up all over town so the Tahous trademarked the “Garbage Plate” moniker in 1992, but most hot dog/hamburger/pizza joints in the area have their own alternate-named version of the plate.
Last night, the local Triple-A baseball franchise, the Rochester Red Wings, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Tahous and the Garbage Plate by renaming the team the “Plates” for one game and offering t-shirts and caps with the “Plates” logo. Yesterday morning, our eldest son sent me a last-minute email suggesting we should go the game. Argh! I knew the place was going to be packed, but any excuse for a father-son outing is a good thing. Traffic was torturously bumper-to-bumper as we neared Frontier Field stadium, but our son was driving so I was calmly relaxed. Once we finally made it inside, we immediately got in line at the team apparel store. We both ended up buying “Plates” caps, of course, to commemorate the historic event. We then went up to our seats and mostly shot the breeze rather than watch the minor league game. Stadium capacity is 13,500 and there weren’t many empty seats. By 8:30 pm, we had had enough and headed for the exit.
There’s not a lot going on in ROC city these days, but the locals take a lot of pride in Rochester’s contribution to international gourmet cuisine, the Garbage Plate! By the way, for those health-conscious readers, the plate comes in at around 1700 calories and 90 grams of fat; not exactly a meal my internist would recommend. But if I WERE to get a plate, my favorite combination is a white hot* and cheeseburger over mac salad and home fries, all smothered in meat hot sauce and topped with chopped raw onions, but please, ABSOLUTELY NO ketchup or mustard.
*”WHITE hot dogs?,” you ask? Ha! That’s a whole nother post, my non-Rochesterian friends!
Postscript: The 8/11/17 edition of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported that the attendance for the “Plates” game was 13,281, the second-largest baseball crowd in Frontier Field’s 20 seasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Tahou_Hots



It looks like a heart attack on a plate. 😂 love the cap & shirt though 👍🏻
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Thanks! I was salivating quite a bit while writing this post and have been thinking about going out and getting a plate ever since yesterday evening. But my doctor already has me on statins and would tell me to get a new internists if he saw me standing in line for a plate.
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Oh my.
That’s all I got to say about that.
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LOL! Good stuff, Wally! By the way, after going to the game last night and then writing that post, wild horses wouldn’t have been able to stop me from driving to a nearby hots/burger joint an hour ago and getting their unique variation of a plate in a wrap. When my bride get’s home from work in an hour she’s going to want to get something for dinner and I’ll be like, “Nah, I’m not hungry.”
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Oh. You will be in trouble
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Whoah I don’t think I can finish it lol
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It’s actually a delicious combo but the meat hot sauce is the key…some places have a better sauce than others. But after you eat a plate it’s like a brick in the gut.
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LOL
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Reblogged this on Truth in Palmyra and commented:
I guess we could call this a:
Hey Grandpa!!! What’s for Supper??? Reblog edition.
Look, we yokels like to say the yankees don’t know how to eat right but I think they nailed it on this one.
Comments closed here, go visit my friend Tom.
Blessings and enjoy!
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Thanks for the re-blog, brother! And Rochester and Nick Tahou’s thank you too!
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Well, I haven’t done a food post in a while, Tom. I really want one of those things. I may have to recreate it at home. The hot sauce would be the challenge, though.
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The ground beef-based hot sauce is the key. It’s so prevalent up here because of the “plates” all over town that out-of-towners often refer to it as “Rochester” hot sauce. Here’s a recipe:
https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/nick-tahous-meat-sauce-28498
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Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. thanks Tom!
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Sure, Wally. If you ever make it I’ll be curious to know how you like it. I haven’t made it at home in years. You can actually buy it here in jars all prepared on grocery store shelves.
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It’s on my to make list, Tom
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Super. My mouth was watering as I was typing out my previous comments so that means I just might have to make a batch tomorrow myself.
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Yum. I’m so hungry now. Just found you here on WordPress. I muse about perogies and all things Rust Belt-ish over at my fairly new blog. Maybe check it out? https://rustbeltgirlblog.wordpress.com/
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Hi Rebecca! Thanks for the heads-up! I’m half-Polish so I’m very familiar with pierogies, gołąbki, and fresh kielbasa! I’m also very familiar with the decline of the Rust Belt as exemplified by my hometown, Rochester, NY.
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