Critical Mass - Critical Mass - Features - From Yale: The Mory's Tradition

From Yale: The Mory's Tradition

By Dan Gelernter

Since all of us young, energetic college conservatives are now on summer vacation, working summer jobs, postings on our blog will be somewhat less frequent -- though at the beginning of next year we will have more writers at more colleges than we did this year. In the meantime we will post as frequently as we can.

Since a number of people have expressed interest in Mory's (as it has been mentioned rather inaccurately in a number of books and at least one movie) this will be the subject of our summer kickoff:

On York Street in New Haven, between Toad’s Dance Hall and a perennial panhandler called “Junior,” is Mory’s Temple Bar – officially the “Mory’s Association” and a New Haven landmark. Mory’s has had four different locations and three owners in its lifetime, and while the club often claims to have been founded in 1849 they seem more or less resigned to the fact that the first owner – Frank Moriarty – opened his doors in 1861. Mory’s is the largest private club in Connecticut (with over 18,000 members) and also has the dubious distinction of being the only unionized restaurant in the state.

The main requirement for membership is association with Yale – as a student, alumnus, or faculty member. Aside from that, you only have to find a current member to endorse your application. Forty dollars covers a student’s four years at Yale; if he wishes to remain a member afterwards the cost is considerably greater. A member has the right to dine at Mory’s and gets a little purple card in his mailbox during the month of his birthday, inviting him to have a meal on the house. If he does not intend to eat his birthday dinner alone, said member will inevitably drop a substantial sum on feeding a friend or two (as the author did) making the purple-card courtesy a profitable venture.

The décor at Mory’s has a dingy, old-Yale feel. The walls are covered with black and white photos of glorious varsity teams and captains and other assorted heroes (including autographed pictures of the five Presidents who went to Yale). From the ceiling rafters hang dozens of oars from famous crew victories (mostly against Harvard) with the race times painted on the blades. The oak tables are decorated with hundreds of carvings, and some have been hung on the walls. Mory’s still invites any guest whose order includes a steak knife to carve his initials into the table, and apparently re-shellacs each active-duty table at the end of the year, preserving the accumulated carvings for ever after.

The main restaurant and kitchen is downstairs, with private rooms and a secondary bar on the upper floor. Every room at Mory’s has a name (the President’s Room, Governor’s Room, Cup Room, Wilbur Cross Room, etc). You almost get the idea that Mory’s takes itself too seriously until you walk into the men’s room and see a little plaque next to the door that says “Harvard Room.”

Five of the Yale Political Union’s six parties have lunch in one of these upstairs rooms every Friday during the term (one left-wing party is so chaotic that it doesn’t seem to be able to figure out how to reserve a table). Since these parties spend a good deal of money at Mory’s, the rooms are usually reserved at no charge, and have classically been assigned so as to match the size and niceness of the room to the amount the party typically spends. (My own Tory Party is poised to graduate from the Cup Room to, perhaps, the Governor’s Room).

The service is fair: The waiters all wear blue Mory’s aprons and little bow-ties; some are polite, others are friendly. You get to recognize the veterans, and you can tell a new recruit by the enthusiastic, earnest manner in which he guides you through the daily specials. The rooms on the upper floor have little doorbell-like buzzers, and we theorize that once upon a time they could be used to summon a waiter. (But we’ve tested them, and they don’t work).

The food is variable and curious. Mory’s prints up fresh menus with daily specials for each meal, and each table has a card advertising an outrageously overpriced dessert and wine of the month. Mory’s has a few standard specialties such as the spicy ‘Baker’s Soup’; their best-known item is the ‘rarebit,’ essentially a bowl of boiled cheese and beer with bread at the very bottom. I know of a number of these actually having been consumed (with varying degrees of satisfaction) but I’ve seen too many of them across the table ever to think of ordering one myself.

At dinner, the menus come out with their most pretentious and occasionally misspelled French items (“Louis” often appears as “Louix”). In exchange for the dinner-time price hike, you are expected to dress appropriately. Nowadays this means suit and necktie.

Diners are entertained by a different Yale a cappella group for every day of the week – Monday evenings are reserved for the Whiffenpoofs, who have a special table carved with the initials of every Poof by year (an older table on the wall goes back to their beginnings in the early 1900s). The Whiffenpoofs always close with their famous “we’re poor little lambs” song – which starts with the lines:

“To the tables down at Mory's,
To the place where Louis dwells,
To the dear old Temple Bar we love so well…”

(Louis Linder was the third and last man to own the club by himself – a board of governors runs it now. Mory’s was located at Temple Street and picked up the soubriquet before moving to York Street in 1912).

Mory’s does its best business catering large banquets in the upstairs rooms. A banquet meal includes a dinner and dessert, which are quickly eaten so the group can move on to the eagerly anticipated toasting session.

The toasting session revolves around the cup (or cups, if you can afford more than one at $35 a piece) which are pot-sized, silvery, two-handled flagons containing one of a number of “secret” alcoholic mixtures (these are only secret to the extent that the recipes hang on large plaques on the kitchen walls). The cup itself (that is, the container) is normally provided by Mory’s, though many institutions have their own. The concoctions are known by their colors (the Green, Red, Purple, Gold, and Velvet cups) and apparently have a champagne base (though the Velvet cup certainly has the taste of beer – and someone thought the foam looked velvety).

The cup is passed to the right, being reversed in the process, so that the handle you held in your left hand is held in your neighbor’s right. Care is taken that no cup touches the table until it is empty. The fellow in possession rises to give his toast, and takes a sip. If the occasion is a banquet for one of the parties in the political union, there is likely a collection of traditional party songs, and the toaster can request a song be sung while he drinks. If the cup is empty enough that the toaster thinks he can polish it off, he will inform his comrades, whereupon the “draining the cup” song is sung. This is an historic little tune that every Yalie seems to know, whether he’s been to Mory’s or not. If the name of our cup-finisher is Edward, the song would go like this:

It’s Teddy, It’s Teddy,
It’s Teddy that makes the world go ‘round.
It’s Teddy, Teddy,
Teddy that makes the world the world go ‘round.
It’s Teddy, Teddy,
Teddy that makes the world the world go ‘round.
It’s Teddy that makes the world go ‘round.

Sing Hallelujah! Sing Hallelujah!
Put a nickel on the drum,
Save another drunken bum.
Sing Hallelujah! Sing Hallelujah!
Put a nickel on the drum and you’ll be saved.

Oh, I’m H-A-P-P-Y to be F-R-double-E,
F-R-double-E to be S-A-V-E-D,
S-A-V-E-D from the bonds of S-I-N,
Sing glory, glory, Hallelujah!
Hip-Hooray, Amen!

Refrain

I was lying in the gutter
I was covered all with beer,
There were pretzels in my moustache
And I thought the end was near.
Along came Teddy, and saved me from my curse.
Sing glory, glory, Hallelujah,
Sing another verse…….

Refrain

Upon the song’s conclusion, the cup is overturned on a white cloth napkin and given a healthy smack on the top. The napkin is then held up for all to see (and is expected to be spotless, though this is not invariably the case). If you examine the cup, you’re more than likely to see engraved on the side “Mory’s: Est. 1849.” Curious tradition.

Posted on Sunday, May 28, 2006 at 10:15PM by

- in Posts by Gelernter |

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