Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (34 page)

Semmelroth has about fifty antique stoves in his own collection, and another two hundred or so that are being restored. Behind the nineteenthcentury farmhouse where he lives with his mother, there are three barns full of
stoves and two additional acres covered with the stoves that he keeps for parts.
He won't touch a stove made after 1955. "They're all hunks of junk," he said.
"Don't get me wrong, these new industrial ones are almost an exception. They
are a step back in the right direction, if you know what I mean. But all that
electric gadgetry-the electric pilots, the convection function-isn't going to
hold up. I bet you that nobody's going to be cooking on a Viking or a Wolf a
hundred years from now."

The choicest pieces on Semmelroth's collection are on display about half a
mile from his home, in his storefront showroom in downtown Tekonsha. Visiting his store is not unlike touring the storage area at the Albany Institute.
Semmelroth is particularly proud of his Magic Chef 63, which was built in
1930. An austere, no-nonsense range, it weights 745 pounds and has eight
burners. Below the burners is a large, all-purpose oven, and stacked to its right
are a bread-warming oven, a baking oven, and two broiling ovens. The range
was built in Lorraine, Ohio, and originally cost $600. "At that time, you could
get a brand-new Chevy for $1600," Semmelroth said. Like the grand customcast stoves of the nineteenth century, the deluxe models of the early twentieth
century were owned by wealthy people who kept household staffs and entertained frequently. Semmelroth, who found this particular stove in a former
diplomat's home in Yonkers, spent several hundred hours restoring it and
plans to sell it for just over $20,000.

It can take weeks of trial and error, Semmelroth says, to learn which burners on a vintage range run hot enough to saute and which will burn the Teflon
off a nonstick skillet. Nevertheless, he cooks regularly on his stoves -for his
mother, for the two friends who work part time for him, and for anyone who
happens into his shop. He simmers soups from the baby vegetables that a
farmer friend sets aside for him, roasts the free-range chickens that another
friend delivers, pan-fries fish from Lake Michigan, and makes fresh bread and
pastry. "I'm like, you know, retro nerd meets gourmet snot," he says. "I'm almost cool."

Semmelroth knows, however, that forty-nine out of fifty of his customers
are merely buying a design element; that's why he's finding it hard to part with
his Magic Chef. He has a waiting list of ten potential purchasers, but so far
none meet his standards. "I want this baby to go to a cooking home," he said.
And that's the problem. The people who can afford to buy vintage stoves cook
even less than the average American. In fact, like the people who buy industrial ranges, they hardly cook at all.

Five years ago, Fred Carl gave a Viking range to Tawana Thompson, the
employee who has been with him the longest. She never uses it. "I live alone,
I get home late, I microwave something to eat," Thompson said. "But I love
looking at my Viking. Sometimes I turn it on just to feel its power." The salespeople who distribute and sell Viking ranges estimate that the vast majority of
their customers are "look, don't cook" people, who prepare elaborate meals
only on holidays or special occasions. Most Viking owners are happily anticipating a time when they can start cooking seriously-whether or not that
time will ever come. Trophy stoves are the culinary equivalent of a retirement
plan; as some save for a world tour or a Florida condo, others now invest in a
showcase kitchen. The Viking range symbolizes its owner's intention to have,
one day, the family life that is supposed to go along with it.

The Carls live in a modest Creole-style house in Northeast Greenwood
where, at least once a week, a small crowd assembles for dinner. The night that
I joined them, there were about a dozen adults gathered in the kitchen-relatives, friends, and those Carl calls "members of the Viking family"-and several children playing in the adjoining room. But there were no vials of 200year-old balsamico in the kitchen, no imported cheeses warming on the
sideboard, and neither Fred nor Margaret did any cooking. The two matriarchs, Jojo Leflore and Lorraine Carl, made dinner. As Lorraine Carl later told
me, "You don't need fancy food if you have family to eat with, and Freddy always understood that."

The mothers had put an eggplant casserole in one of the two ovens of the Carls' Viking range before I arrived. They conferred on the seasoning for what
they called gravy-a red Bolognese-style sauce made with a shoulder roast,
tomato paste, onions, garlic, basil, oregano, sugar, salt, and a heap of black
pepper-which was simmering on the stove. Fred Carl offered drinks; Margaret Carl sat at the table and chatted. While JoJo Leflore put on the water for
pasta shells, we dug into smoked pork ribs.

People served themselves, heaping their plates from the platters that were
arranged on the counter. As they moved into the dining room, Fred Carl said,
"most people don't have this. They feel like something's missing-something
that works, something that lasts." It is precisely this sense of deprivation that
Carl has so adeptly exploited. Analysts estimate that in the year 2000 the
Viking Range Corporation generated $200 million in sales. Carl intends to
more than double this figure over the next five years.

Viking's success has spawned many competitors; small companies like
Dacor and Wolf and appliance giants like Thermador, Frigidaire, and General
Electric began introducing commercial-style ranges for the home. The knockoffs may not all be as durable or as powerful as a Viking, but they usually cost
less and tend to be more widely available and easier to service. Viking's service
has not kept up with the company's expansion, and the formerly unimpeachable range has begun to garner occasional criticism.

Viking's luxury status is also being challenged. Upscale shelter magazines
have moved on to other stoves, like La Cornue, AGA, and Diva de Provence.
An elaborate, French-made, country-style range, La Cornue costs between
$11,000 and $28,000, and is now sold by Williams-Sonoma. In part, the
range's chic is based on scarcity. Tiny companies like La Cornue make several
hundred stoves a year; Viking produces that many in a week.

In response, Carl is diversifying furiously. He has expanded his line to include wall ovens and cooktops, refrigerators, dishwashers, trash compactors,
pots and pans, and cutlery. He has bought Rutt and St. Charles, another cabinet company he admires-"St. Charles cabinets! Fallingwater has St. Charles
cabinets!"-and he plans to introduce small electrical appliances, such as
mixers, blenders, and microwave ovens, over the next few years. An increasing
number of developers are installing complete Viking kitchens in luxury
homes and apartments.

Viking is now Greenwood's second-largest employer, after the local medical center, and Carl has been buying up as much real estate in town as he can.
He is spending several million dollars on renovating the long-vacant Hotel
Irving and reclaiming many other buildings downtown, and his new project is
occupying more and more of his workday. "Things are starting to move in this old Delta," he said. Pushing aside the two books on his desk- Taking Charge
and The Disney Way- he drew a map of the area on a yellow legal pad, tracing
a triangle that began in Greenwood and spread west toward Cleveland and
Clarksdale.

"The blues triangle!" he cried. "We're starting right here with the Hotel Irving and building a blues-tourism industry-restaurants, hotels, folk life. A
blues hall of fame! We're pulling together the people and the money. It could
save this old state. Anyway, I don't think we've begun to tap the market for
super-premium ranges. At least, I hope we haven't," he added, laughing.

"I was reading in a magazine about the Land Rover Company and how they
set up these places where people could learn how to drive the car on all sorts
of terrain," he went on. "Don't you think people should be able to test-drive a
Viking range, too?" To that end, Carl plans to spend more than $30 million to
open several dozen Viking Culinary Arts Centers across the country over the
next five years. He has already opened two, one in Memphis and the other in
Nashville. The centers include retail stores, where steel shelves are stocked
with gourmet groceries, copper bowls, and porcelain molds. They have amphitheaters for cooking demonstrations. And, of course, they have sprawling
kitchens for classes where potential customers can pay to try out every appliance that the Viking Range Corporation sells.

The centers won't sell Viking stoves, however; anyone who feels like ordering one will have to go to a distributor. As Fred Carl knows, the supply of
customers willing to pay for trophy stoves just to look at them is finite, so he's
resorting to extreme measures: "We're going to teach people how to cook."