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George Mardikian (1903-1977) http://tinyurl.com/Mardikian

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Potato Salad

From Dinner at Omar Khayyam's, 1944.

Reader: Kevin Hearle

Seasoned travelers know how to get a good meal in a strange place, but it's a pretty tall order when you don't speak the language.

After escaping a Turkish prison camp, Armenian freedom fighter George Mardikian came to the United States in 1922. After his New York arrival, the young emigrant headed for California to join his brother and sister, a journey made just a bit more complicated by Madrikian's lack of English.

People could see that I couldn't speak English because I was labeled with a tag showing my name and destination. Fortunately, my brother had sent me money enough so that I could well afford to eat in the dining car, but the trouble was that I couldn't order in English. Being able to read French, I could make out potato salad on the menu. It is practically the same in my language, so I took a chance and ordered it for my first dinner. The next day I was presented with an identical menu. Again I ordered potato salad. This went on for eight days, and it was bad potato salad—really terrible potato salad.

Right then and there I resolved that some day when I got the opportunity, I was going to serve Americans the best potato salad in the world.

Mardikian kept that promise and became one of California's most innovative restaurateurs, owner of a string of sandwich shops and San Francisco's Omar Khayyam's Restaurant, which he featured in his 1944 book, Dinner at Omar Khayyam's.