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Tarpon Cultural Center To Cook Up Culinary History

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: February 28, 2009

TARPON SPRINGS - History and culinary arts buffs will be able to sample the flavor of the area's past today.

Andrew Huse, assistant librarian in the Special Collections Department at the University of South Florida Tampa Campus, will present a talk at the Tarpon Springs Cultural Center that will be a gastronomic journey through the state's delicious history.

Huse will present the free seminar at 2 p.m. today, Saturday. The Tarpon Springs Cultural Center is at 101 S. Pinellas Ave., at Court Street.

Florida's food and restaurants are as diverse as its people and have changed throughout the century, said Gen Haley, city cultural services marketing and communications coordinator.

Huse offers a look back at union soup houses, jook joints, shady speakeasies, notorious drive-in burger stands, barbecue pits, fish fries "and places of luxurious leisure."

During the 1930s and '40s, the Tarpon Springs downtown had a thriving "red light" district with notorious leisure houses in which culinary treats and other delights were served up - before the feds closed them.

Huse's talk will take everyone on a journey from places in which the rich dined to humble home-style eateries. There will be enlightening references to quirky and trendy places.

Huse teaches a graduate course on Florida gastronomy in USF's Florida studies program. He authored the Columbia Restaurant's centennial cookbook and is penning a book chronicling the Sunshine State's restaurant history and food culture.

A Florida Humanities Council Road Scholar grant made Huse's visit here possible.

For more information call the Cultural Center at 727-942-5605.

Mark Schantz can be reached at 727-815-1075 or mschantz@suncoastnews.com.

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