Karen's Kitchen: Home of the World's Famous Hot Wiener Omelet

Local Diner Delivers!

Karen's Kitchen is located on 347 Waterman Ave in Smithfield, Rhode Island. The phone number is 401-233-0440. The restaurant is a quaint and quiet restaurant. This is a small mom and pop diner that serves breakfast and lunch 7 days a week. The store is open 5a to 1p on most days. It is a great local hang out that takes care in the small detail. The restaurant has a friendly, relaxed atmosphere and the charm only builds with the mismatch furniture. This dated "dive" style atmosphere is impeccably clean with throwback portions. The pancakes are enormous and the selection of choices is great. If they don't have it on the menu, they can make if for you. The thick bacon and Irish sausages are top quality. I have not been brave enough to try the hot wiener omelet although I hear its very good.

My husband and I go every other weekend and sometimes we go with the kids and sometimes we get up at the crack of dawn and go just ourselves. The last time I went, I had a banana and walnut pancake with bacon and a cup of tea. I brought a book and relaxed away from the stresses of a crazy week. Nobody rushed me and I enjoyed a long relaxing breakfast.

The pricing is reasonable and the food is a la carte. Be advised it is a cash only restaurant. A breakfast for my husband and I was around $15. A family of 7 with 4 hungry men cost us around $35 dollars including tip. It is a great way to spend a leisurely Saturday or Sunday morning. I'm sure if you venture to the Smithfield area, you'll be one of the regulars that visit this place.

Recipe: Meat Sauce for N.Y. System Wieners

Meat Sauce for N.Y. System Wieners

1 pound lean ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon celery salt

1 teaspoon chili powder

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup water

Brown beef with onion. Add everything but water. Bring to a simmer, add water, then simmer 10 to 15 minutes. Serve over wieners in a bun.

Enough for 2 pounds of hot wieners.

Hot Wieners Rhode Island Style by Guy Fieri

Ingredients
4 tablespoons margarine
2 yellow onions, minced, divided
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon curry
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pound ground beef, 80/20
1/4 cup water
20 hot dogs
1 teaspoon salt
20 hot dog buns
Yellow mustard
2 tablespoons celery salt
Directions
In a medium saute pan over medium heat add, margarine and 1 minced onion. Saute till translucent, but do not brown. Next add chili powder, paprika, allspice, curry, dry mustard and cinnamon. Then add beef, stir thoroughly and cook for 5 minutes, add water and simmer over medium to low heat for 30 minutes.

In a medium sauce pot boil hot dogs with salt and steam buns.

When meat is done simmering, add meat mixture to the hot dog in the bun, top evenly with minced onion, yellow mustard, and a sprinkle celery salt

Wein-O-Rama

1009 Oaklawn Avenue, Cranston
(401) 943-4990

Ready for lunch? Your visit to Rhode Island isn't complete until you've tried the local version of the hot dog, known as hot weiners, bellybusters, destroyers, or gaggers (pronounced "weenuhs, bellybustuhs..." etc.) Hot weiners can be found at numerous locations throughout the state, including any of the New York System locations, but we prefer Wein-O-Rama in Cranston for their déclassé moniker and large retro-style sign. Their heart-attack-inducing menu is chock full of simple diner fare, from a more innocent time when no one worried about their cholesterol.
Wein-O-Rama was started by Michael Sotirakos, an immigrant from Sparta, Greece, in 1962. In the mid-1950s, he and his wife had come to Rhode Island, where Sotirakos hoped to make a living as an aircraft mechanic. But jobs were scarce and there was zero chance that a Greek-speaking immigrant could get a position at Quonset Naval Base. So he reluctantly took a job as a short-order cook at his aunt and uncle's Original Coney Island restaurant, in Hoyle Square in Providence. There he learned to speak English and cook hot weiners.
Hot weiners consist of a delicious weiner (usually smaller than a standard hot dog and cut, rather than tied off, at the ends), topped with mustard, meat sauce (finely chopped beef with "secret" herbs and spices), chopped onion, and celery salt on a steamed bun. Order a bunch at once and have the dubious pleasure of watching the greasy-aproned grill person prepare them "up d'ahm," meaning that he will line the buns up on his arm, up to the shoulder if necessary, while slopping on the ingredients. Health authorities frown on this practice, but have so far been unable to put a stop to it. After all, it's a tradition!
From his uncle's restaurant Sotirakos moved to the New York System in Arctic, and around 1958 he opened his own restaurant, Mike's Grill, on Park Avenue in Cranston. He was successful enough that he thought he might be able to go national, franchising the hot weiner concept on the model of Burger Chef, a popular fast food chain at the time. In 1962 Sotirakos opened a second location on Oaklawn Avenue and dubbed it Wein-O-Rama, after Cinerama, the short-lived 1950s ultra-wide movie screen format.
During the first year, Sotirakos wasn't sure if he would be able to make it in what was then an undeveloped part of Cranston, so he started simple. Service was strictly drive-up, with four take-out windows at the front of the building. The menu consisted of weiners, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, steak sandwiches, french fries, and drinks. Every item cost just fifteen cents. The franchise idea never came to fruition, but business was so brisk at the new location that in 1963 Sotirakos sold Mike's Grill in order to concentrate all his energies on Wein-O-Rama.
When Sotirakos retired, he passed the business to his sons, George and Ernie, although he continued to oversee operations occasionally. George, at 6' 8", claims to be the tallest short-order cook in the state, and it's probably true. At least, when we spoke with George in March 2001, he told us he's not been challenged yet.
Other than the prices, very little has changed at Wein-O-Rama since it first opened. The breakfast special—2 eggs, home fries, toast—is still a bargain at $1.95 (as of July 2005). The meat sauce is still simmered for at least six hours, and weiners are still prepared the traditional way, "up d'ahm." One concession to the times is a protective PVC sleeve that the Sotirakos's have had manufactured for their use. Not only is it more hygenic, but it protects the grill person's arm from the heat of the sauce.
And just how many weiners can George fit on his arm?
"We only make twelve at a time. We won't make no more than that. Long ago they used to. Years ago, the old timers... my uncle had a picture in the paper with him with 23. But we don't do no more than twelve 'cause that's about all we can fit up to the elbow."
What distinguishes Wein-O-Rama from its many competitors? Is it the sauce?
"I don't consider it a secret. My meat sauce, I use fresh ground beef. And I buy it in Ruggieri's Market. All the New York Systems use a product called edible beef fat. And they buy it from, you know, the person who supplies the weiners, whoever... I think my meat manufacturer carries it. It's white. It's... it's not hamburger! I think the quality of the product they use sets me apart. I never consider myself a New York System. That's why you don't see the words New York System anywhere."
Original New York System, at 424 Smith Street in Providence, lays claim to being the very first hot weinie joint in Rhode Island. Most businesses that followed used the name New York or Coney Island System to cash in on the name recognition, and these names have since become synonymous with hot weiners. As to why they're called New York rather than Rhode Island Systems, well, no one knows.
"The weiners themselves are kind of the same. But, the fact that we sell so many, they move so quickly. They're not sitting on the grill for hours at a time getting burned. More TLC, you know what I mean? We consider ourselves a family restaurant, serving a little better clientele of people than late night crowds."
On a typical Saturday, George says, they sell between five and six hundred weiners. In the forty-plus years Wein-O-Rama has been open, he estimates they've served over seven million. Is it possible to get tired of weiners, we wondered? "I still eat two or three every day," he laughed. "I'm the only one [here] that probably eats them every day."
Weiners are even loved by atheletes. Wein-O-Rama sponsors the Cranston Western Little League, and members of the team often stop in for a lunch of hot dogs and soda before returning to their all-day practice. In 1996 Cranston Western represented the United States at the Little League World Series, where a 13-3 defeat at the hands of Taiwan left them holding the title of second-best Little League team in the world. Not too shabby for a team nourished on weiners.
We asked George if Wein-O-Rama had any vegetarian patrons, and what sort of treatment they might receive.
"Well, they shouldn't come in here!" he replied, laughing. Then he admitted, "You get vegetarians that want a vegetable omelet for breakfast, things like that, yeah. We please everybody. Try to, anyway."
We knew 2002 would be an anniversary for Wein-O-Rama and we asked George if he and his family had any special plans to mark the occasion. "It'll be our fortieth year in June. We were thinking of doing like a weiner competition. For charity. Pay an entry fee, eat as many weiners as you can, and we'll see who the king of the hot weinie eating competition is. All the money would go to charity." But at the time we spoke there were no firm plans.
And what of the future of Wein-O-Rama? Is there a new generation coming up that wants to carry on the tradition?
"None that wants it, no. My daughter works here. I want them to move on to bigger and better things. Easier things. Years ago I was putting in 70 hours a week. Now we put in 48 on a long week, maybe."
"In another ten years maybe, [we'll] close on our fiftieth anniversary. I'll be in my fifties by then. It all depends on my younger brother."
We hope that Wein-O-Rama never closes. And who knows, maybe it never will. After all, in 2012, the place will be eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Related Link: Care for a little inside baseball? Read about our friend Dave and his experience with gagguhs.

Cost: Menu prices vary
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 7am-4pm; closed Sunday
Finding it: from Route 95 take exit 12 and bear right, following signs for the Warwick Mall; turn right at the first light you come to, then turn left at the next light onto Oaklawn Avenue; Wein-O-Rama is almost immediately on the left after an overpass.

WHENCE CAME THE FIRST NEW YORK SYSTEM?

Rhode Island is an odd little state. For life-longresidents this is a simple fact, one they don’tnecessarily think about every day, but for manynew arrivals the elements that contribute to thestate’s oddness are blatant and baffling. Breadand milk disappear from grocery store shelveswhen flurries are forecast, we seem to havesome sort of worshipful relationship with ahuge, blue, fiberglass insect that lives by thehighway, we have a deep-seated fear of “crossingthe bridge.” and we go crazy for thesefunny little hot dogs known as hot weiners.

A hot weiner is a small pork hot dog toppedwith mustard, meat sauce made with a secretblend of spices, chopped sweet onions and celerysalt, and served in a steamed bun. It’s notunusual for a veteran weiner lover to eat threeor six at a sitting, washing them down with acold glass of coffee milk.

Some eateries still prepareas many as twelve or thirteen weiners atonce “up d’arm” during busy times, meaningthe grill person lines the buns up on his forearmto load the ingredients. Weiners are alsoknown in some limited circles as gaggers, bellybustersor destroyers.Trying hot weiners is a rite of passage for every newcomer (or if it’snot, it should be), that inevitably raises a slew of questions. Why doso many of the restaurants that serve hot weiners include some variantof “New York System” in their name? What’s in the secret sauce, andwho invented it? And how much of what I’m tasting is actually armsweat?

The story of hot weiners in Rhode Island is a deep and tangled one. Early newspaper reports are scarce, businesses have changed hands ordisappeared and family memories have dimmed or transmuted overthe decades, making it difficult to pin down just which was the original(or at the very least, which is the oldest) purveyor of hot weinersin the state. Luckily, I already knew going into this assignment whothe two most likely contenders were: Coney Island System in EastProvidence and Original New York System in Providence.You might think that Original New York System has the edge. Afterall, there’s that word “original” right in the name. But it wasn’t alwayscalled that. According to owner GusPappas, when it was opened in 1927 byhis grandfather, Gust, an immigrantfrom Greece, it was simply called New York System.

The “original” was added later to distinguish the restaurant fromits many imitators. Gust chose thename as an homage to New York City.If you can imagine yourself as an immigrantseeing the city for the firsttime, having grown up in a small Greekvillage, you can understand why.

The other contender, Coney IslandSystem lists an establishment date of1915 on its menu, which if true, wouldmake it a full twelve years older thanOriginal New York System. Coney IslandSystem was started by anotherGreek immigrant, Theodore G. Kanelos,on Westminster Street in Providence.He passed the business on to hisson, James T. Kanelos, who ran it for aremarkable 50 years before retiring in1984. At one time there were locationsin Providence, Cranston, and East Providence, although only the last is still operating. The current owner is a fellow with the shockingmoniker of Sparky Watts, who learned the weiner business fromJimmy Kanelos when he was in high school and college.Now I mean no disrespect, but such a discrepancy between thefounding dates of two businesses that claim to be the “first” onlymakes me more curious.

Having talked with the owners, and scouredmicrofilmed newspapers for articles and obituaries, I turned to the oldProvidence city directories. These books, published yearly since at least1901, list residents, their businesses, their occupations and their homeaddresses.

Theodore G. Kanelos first showed up in Providence in the1907 volume, but his occupation was listed as “confectioner.” He practicedthis occupation at various locations (although mostly on WestminsterStreet), up until 1922. In 1917 he was alternatively listed asa “grocer” and in 1921 he apparently partnered with a fellow namedPeter Vican in a pool parlor venture. 1923 was the first time “restaurant”was used as the description of his occupation.

The unnamedeatery was located at 16 Plainfield Street. In 1929 and 1930 Kanelosapparently dabbled in real estate, but by 1931 he was back tothe restaurant business, and this time the familiar name of ConeyIsland System appears for the first time. The location was 462Westminster Street.

But this wasn’t the first business with such a name. In 1925 aplace called Coney Island System Lunch appeared at 653 Westminster,and Coney Island Special, 678 Westminster, followed in1926. There’s no indication either place served hot weiners andneither appears to have had a connection to Kanelos, but furtherresearch would be needed to confirm that.So what about New York System? Well, their first listing appearedin the 1931 volume also, with a location at 424 SmithStreet, the same site where they can still be found today. The firstuse of the word “system” that I could find was for an eatery calledNew England System, located at 29 Eddy Street in 1924.

Does this mean that the founding dates advertised by both establishmentsare incorrect? Not necessarily. I’m only reporting what Ifound in the directories, which suggests that neither restaurant existedprior to 1931. There are other sources, yet untried, which might painta different picture.The most important asset of any hot weiner place is its secret sauce.As jealously guarded as the location of a hidden parking spot in Newportin July, some owners go so far as to keep the ingredients in alocked cabinet and banish their employees from the store when itcomes time to mix up a batch.

One such was Harry Kazianis, yet anotherGreek immigrant and owner of Harry’s New York System inWarwick, who admitted in a 1998 Providence Journal article that hebased his recipe on that of Original New York System. Harry workedat ONYS for about a year, shortly after arriving in America in 1947.One day the owner wasn’t feeling well and asked Harry to help himmix the sauce. He may have thought that Harry’s limited grasp of Englishwould safeguard the recipe, but Harry memorized the spice labels,then experimented on his own until he came up with the sauce that’sstill in use at Harry’s New York System today.Original New York System’s sauce recipe didn’t just come out ofnowhere, either.

Gust Pappas had a first cousin named Nicholas who had opened a restaurant in 1920 in Fall River, Massachusetts, calledNick’s Coney Island Weiners. When Gust decided to open his ownplace, Nick gave him the sauce recipe. According to Nick’s OriginalConey Island Weiners website, nicksconeysauce.com, Nicholas Pappasacquired the recipe while working for a hot dog vendor in Philadelphia.We’ve been working our way back along a branch of the hot weinerfamily tree, one among many.

It turns out that quite a few Greek immigrantslanded at Ellis Island, got a taste of New York and went onto open their own restaurants based on those (most notably Feltman’sConey Island Red-Hots and Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs) they mayhave experienced at Coney Island in Brooklyn. Todoroff ’s OriginalConey Island (1914) and American Coney Island (1917) in Michigan,Curtis’ Coney Island Famous Weiners in Maryland (1918) and ConeyIsland Lunch in Pennsylvania (1923), to name a few, were all foundedby Greeks (or in the case of George Todoroff, a Macedonian).

All usea meat-based chili sauce, mustard and chopped onions as standardtoppings. It appears that the addition of celery salt is an abuse to whichonly Rhode Islanders subject themselves.Although I haven’t seen a source that explicitly says so, I think themeat sauce is a variation of chili con carne, adapted for use as a condiment.Chili is believed to have come out of Mexico in the 1880’s andspread through Texas to the rest of the county.

This would also explainwhy many weiner places elsewhere in the country have Texas or Dallasin their name, such as Dallas Hot Weiners in Kingston, New York,and Hot Grill Texas Weiners in Paterson, New Jersey.So it seems that although “New York System” is the prevailing namechoice for hot weiner restaurants in Rhode Island today, it stems froma “Coney Island” tradition that continues in other parts of the country.

Both names come from a common source, though: Greek immigrants’first experiences in America, gained in the great metropolis of NewYork City and the nearby urban playground of Coney Island.As for which hot weiner restaurant is the oldest in the state, OriginalNew York System or Coney Island System, I’m sure Gus Pappas andSparky Watts will be happy to tell you. Just ask them.And while you’re at it, ask them about the arm sweat.

Top Hot Wiener

Olneyville N.Y. System 20 Plainfield St. Providence 621.9500

Hot dog? It's a hot dog you want? Fine. Go to Spike's on Thayer Street. No, what we're talking about here are hot wieners, New York System style, which of course means they're only available in Rhode Island.
Now, I've tasted a lot of wieners in my day.
(OK, hold it right there. I promised myself I would not make any obvious wiener jokes, so that is the only one you're going to get. I am just going to have to use some willpower.)
But the quintessential hot wiener can be found at Olneyville N.Y. System in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence. There's a neon sign on the otherwise indistinguishable building and inside, a room-length lunch counter faces off against mundane booths. The "menu" is written on the wall.
A hot wiener costs $1.50. Don't come looking for foot-longs; each wiener is about four inches, which we all know is a much more reasonable expectation for a wiener.
(Damn it!)
Thus, you'll end up ordering more than one. That's where the fun begins. Per the New York System - the name denotes the origin of the recipe's inventors, not of the recipe itself - your friendly wiener-maker will line up steamed buns on his forearm, put in the wieners, and then, working down the line in quick succession, will slap on mustard, meat sauce, onions and celery salt. Unfortunately, these days they're only lining up three wieners at a time until someone invents a plastic glove that covers the entire forearm, but the spirit is still there.
The meat sauce contains ground beef and a secret blend of herbs and spices, making Olneyville N.Y. System the KFC of hot wieners. What could be better? A fellow patron even said she was packing up the wieners to take with her on an airplane. One can only imagine the delectable aroma that made the other passengers envious.
A couple of caveats: First, health nuts need not apply. Second, to get to the restaurant's bathroom you have to go up a small staircase that teeters perilously close to a large vat of some sort of grease. You may want to go on such excursions elsewhere.
These shortcomings aside, once you've been to Olneyville N.Y. System, any regular old hot dog will leave you with, well, wiener envy.
(What? Was that so wrong?)

The Big Flavors Of Little Rhode Island

By PAUL LUKAS
Published: November 13, 2002

''NOW that's a New York System hot wiener,'' Jack Chiaro said, biting into a small frankfurter topped with meat sauce, which despite his pronouncement was utterly unlike anything found in New York.
Over the next hours, he discussed the finer points of such delights as Awful Awfuls, Del's lemonade, stuffies, cabinets, johnnycakes, doughboys and clam cakes, washing down his meal with a big glass of coffee milk.
If all this sounds like gibberish -- it probably does -- that's a sure sign that you have never lived in Rhode Island (a k a the Ocean State and Little Rhody), the home of these delicacies. And if the notion of Rhode Island food specialties seems dubious, think again.
Ridiculed by some for its diminutive size and largely ignored by many others who lump it in with the rest of New England, Rhode Island, with a population of just over one million, offers a surprisingly large number of local dishes, each with its own traditions, heritage and terminology.
Most have not only stubbornly persevered but have also stayed within the state's borders, remaining virtually unknown to nonresidents. The result is an unusually vibrant food subculture concentrated in a very small area.
In an age when chain restaurants, malls, cable television and the Internet have erased many regional eccentricities from American life, how has Rhode Island managed to keep so many of its food traditions intact? And why haven't they migrated beyond the state line?
''Maybe because Rhode Islanders are very provincial,'' said Mr. Chiaro, who teaches cooking at Johnson & Wales University in Providence and is a self-styled authority on the state's food heritage. ''Because we're so small, any trip is a big trip, so people don't really travel anywhere. They stay close to home, and their culture stays close with them.''
Ted Widmer, a historian who grew up in Rhode Island and teaches at Washington College in Maryland, offered a similar explanation. ''That Middle American desire to succeed beyond your neighborhood has never animated Rhode Islanders,'' he said. ''What's important is your extended family, the people who live on your block and maybe 10 other people you've known all your life. It's very, very local.''
Food doesn't get much more local than the New York System wiener. Mr. Chiaro said that the term New York System dated from the early 1900's, when hot dogs began appearing in Rhode Island but were still associated primarily with New York, any invocation of which was considered a badge of authenticity. (Hot dogs in the Midwest are often called Coney Islands for the same reason.)
Although Rhode Island franks are now usually called wieners -- never hot dogs -- the New York System tag endures in the signs on wiener shops, which typically carry names like Sam's New York System Restaurant and Riverside Kitchen New York System.
But the New York System is more than a name. It's a distinct style of preparation, which crystallized around 1940 among Providence's Greek immigrant hot dog vendors and then spread through the state.
The wieners are cut short, usually about four inches. They cook slowly on a low-heat griddle all day and are served in a soft steamed bun. Counter clerks apply mustard, chopped raw onions, celery salt and the true hallmark of hot wieners: a greasy ground-beef sauce that's not quite chili, not quite gravy, distinct unto itself.
Since the wieners are small, most customers order several, which means a table of three or four people may order a dozen or more.
Griddle men respond to these large orders by lining up a series of buns on one extended forearm and then adding the franks and dressings with their free hand, usually in a quick, mesmerizingly ritualistic fashion. This prep method, sometimes called ''up the arm,'' is the essence of the New York System.
At Olneyville New York System in Providence -- a gritty, old-school lunch counter that Mr. Chiaro cites as the state's definitive hot wiener emporium -- the supersoft bun, tender frank and mild sauce meld into an appealing mass of sloppy goodness. But at the Wein-O-Rama, a family oriented shop in neighboring Cranston, the elements are more distinct, because of a spicier sauce, with hints of allspice and cloves, and a meatier, substantial frank. (This is bad form to Mr. Chiaro, who said that the whole point of hot wieners was to keep the experience ''as low grade as possible.'') Subtle variations like these keep the hot wiener scene lively and competitive.
The classic beverage at hot wiener shops -- and at most other Rhode Island restaurants -- is coffee milk, which is like chocolate milk but is made with coffee syrup. Cynthia Wall, vice president of Autocrat, a coffee producer in the Providence area, traced coffee milk's origins back to the 1930's, when enterprising diner and drugstore operators sweetened leftover coffee grounds with milk and sugar, creating a slurry extract that became as popular with children as hot coffee was with adults.
Ms. Wall said the first coffee syrup available for retail sale was a Warwick-based brand called Eclipse, which made its debut in 1938 and became known for the slogan ''You'll smack your lips when it's Eclipse.'' Autocrat soon followed with its own version and later acquired Eclipse. The syrups were instant hits, presaging a statewide love affair with the coffee-sugar-dairy combination. (Rhode Island is among the national leaders in coffee ice cream consumption, and supermarkets offer a locally produced coffee gelatin dessert mix.)
With coffee milk a ubiquitous presence on menus and Autocrat -- now a fourth-generation family business -- still making coffee syrup for grocery sale, it's tempting to think of coffee milk as the unofficial state drink. Except that it's actually the official state drink, having been so designated by the Legislature in 1993.
That certification did not come without controversy. Some Rhode Islanders felt that the government's imprimatur should have been bestowed upon Del's Frozen Lemonade, a Cranston-based chain founded in 1948 by Angelo DeLucia, who used a recipe that his grandfather brought from Italy.
Del's now has dozens of festively designed roadside outlets throughout the state, each offering a signature product midway between Italian ices and a Slurpee: imagine a cup of half-melted snow. It is as refreshing for its icy texture as for its tart flavor, which comes from real lemons, not processed syrup.
Del's has opened a few outlets in other states, but it still carries virtually zero name recognition outside of Rhode Island. ''I don't really know why it never caught on in other places,'' said Bruce DeLucia, Angelo's son. ''Maybe we just like to keep things to ourselves around here.''
As for losing out to coffee milk in the state-certification sweepstakes, Mr. DeLucia was diplomatic. ''It would've been a nice honor,'' he said, ''but it was also a great honor just to be considered for something like that. Plus, you're dealing with politics -- what are you going to do?''
More substantial beverages than coffee milk and Del's are available in Rhode Island, but the dialect can be confusing. If you ask for a milkshake, you'll just get a mix of milk and syrup; if you want what most Americans call a milkshake, with ice cream mixed in, you must order a cabinet. The term's precise origins are unclear, but the most commonly accepted explanation involves early milkshake blenders, which were shipped in heavy wooden cabinets.
There's also an übercabinet called an Awful Awful -- short for ''awful big, awful good'' -- which is available from a regional chain called Newport Creamery. An immense thick shake that is nearly impossible to finish (and never mind the standing offer to ''Drink three, get one free!''), the Awful Awful has become a statewide institution.
Thanks to its coastal setting, Rhode Island has a rich seafood heritage, much of it centering on quahogs, which are large chowder clams, usually measuring four or five inches across. The region's first European settlers learned about quahogs from the Narragansett Indians, who had been eating them for centuries and had cultivated clam beds that remain bountiful today.
''Because of the way the state is configured, almost everybody is near a shoreline, so they all go to the beach,'' Mr. Chiaro said to explain the state's quahog mania. ''And if you're down at the beach and dig with your toes, you'll hit a quahog.''
Although the term quahog is not unique to Rhode Island, and technically also applies to smaller hard-shell clams like cherrystones and littlenecks, it has a specific meaning on local menus. The fresh-shucked clams are chopped or ground and mixed into a stuffing, which typically includes bread crumbs, Tabasco sauce, minced onions, celery, peppers and often the Portuguese sausage chourica (reflecting the influence of Rhode Island's large Portuguese population). The stuffing is then spooned back into the large clamshells and baked, resulting in a big, delicious serving. Stuffed quahogs are often called stuffies, and the two terms are used interchangeably throughout the state.
Stuffies are popular at George's, a lovely seaside restaurant in Galilee, which is a good source for another Rhode Island seafood specialty: clam cakes. Although the name implies a mollusk-driven version of crab cakes, clam cakes aren't cakes at all. They're clam fritters, fried like a brinier rendition of Southern hush puppies. Although some renditions are a bit light in the clam department, well-executed clam cakes are a treat.
So are doughboys, another type of fritter. Doughboys, hunks of deep-friend pizza dough, usually rolled in granulated sugar, probably originated with Rhode Island's Italian population and are often available at pizzerias, but they are also found at many of the seafood shacks that serve clam cakes and stuffies. At Iggy's, one of the eating places clustered down by Narragansett Bay in the Oakland Beach section of Warwick, the doughboys are delicious little gut bombs and addictive enough to become a meal in themselves.
Finally, no overview of Rhode Island's culinary heritage would be complete without johnnycakes, the unleavened cornmeal pancakes served at breakfast haunts. The name's origin is a matter of some dispute as is its spelling: johnny-cake, jonnycake, Johnnycake and Johnny Cake are frequent variants. Some say the name derives from ''journey cake'' or ''Shawnee cake,'' although Mr. Chiaro dismissed both theories. ''Johnnycakes don't travel well,'' he said, ''and our Narragansett Indians never had anything to do with the Shawnees.'' His favored explanation is that the term derives from joniken, an Indian word for corn.
In any case, it's generally agreed that johnnycakes, or something very much like them, were being prepared by the Narragansetts as far back as the 1600's, when European colonists arrived and learned about them.
They haven't changed much over the years, mainly because the recipe is simplicity itself: cornmeal and water. The batter is fried in a skillet and topped with butter, syrup or honey. An excellent version is available at the Commons Lunch in the hamlet of Little Compton, where the deep-brown johnnycakes are toothsome and hearty, perfect for a brisk autumn day.
Johnnycake purists -- that is, most Rhode Islanders -- insist that a johnnycake isn't authentic unless it's made from whitecap flint corn grown and ground into meal in Rhode Island, preferably with millstones made of Rhode Island granite. The near-universal brand of choice is Kenyon's, produced by a local mill that dates back to 1886 and whose little blue boxes of meal are staples in Rhode Island groceries. But at the risk of sending half the state into cardiac arrest, here's the truth about Kenyon's: most of its corn comes from Virginia.
''The fact is, we don't raise much in the state of Rhode Island anymore except houses, babies and taxes,'' explained Paul Drumm Jr., Kenyon's owner. ''We still get some local corn occasionally, but there just isn't enough of it. It's the reality of doing business -- go to Vermont, and you won't see too many buckets hanging from maple trees either.'' Regardless of the corn's origin, Kenyon's meal still turns out the definitive Rhode Island johnnycake.
Can Rhode Island sustain its regional food culture? Mr. Chiaro has his doubts. ''It's probably going to die out,'' he said. ''These provincial foods can't compete with places like McDonald's, where a milkshake is called a milkshake, not a cabinet, and so on. I think my generation may be the last one to know these foods the way they are now.''
But Mr. Widmer, the historian, has higher hopes. ''If any place can resist homogenization, it's Little Rhody,'' he said. ''I think we've actually turned a corner, and people are more defiantly proud of Rhode Island culture than ever. Many of the new converts are people who moved here, not natives, but I think their energy and passion are important. I don't see it changing.'' Let us hope he's right, for the demise of this underappreciated eating scene would truly be awful, awful.