Earl Don Sweeney Visits Vinyard’s Foods: An International Food Adventure in Mt. Pleasant
Above Photo: Vinyard’s Foods checker Barbara McNeil, from England, adds to the store’s international flavor.
From The East Texas Journal, January 1998
By Earl Don Sweeney
Hometown store offers foreign food bonanza!
I was out on the yard, adding oil to a borrowed stump grinder and Nadine was on the divan on the porch, by the washing machine, filling out an order form for some Blair stretch pants advertised in Modern Maturity (2 pair for $8.88, plus shipping and handling).
“Earl Don,” she said, “you’re an expert on barbecue and hot links, but there’s a lot of food you don’t know diddly squat about. There’s a bunch of ladies from the beauty shop go on a Winnebago to Sulphur Springs ever month just to eat lasagna.
“It’s Italian,” she said, and went on from there about what a shame it is that foreign stuffs always so far off.
I could only shake my head.
Since the 60s, and maybe earlier than that, Vinyard’s Foods, 601 North Jefferson, has served our community with culinary riches truly from around the globe. They’ve had bullion cubes and other oriental spices since before people knew how to spell it.
For as long as I know, Barbara McNeil, who was born at England, has been at the check stand by the end of aisle four saying “Plastic or paper?” in an accent as high cultured as a TV foreign movie. Sometimes I’ll drop in and get a quart of mellorine just to hear her talk.
In more way than one, she’s our community’s international food clerk.
Listening at Nadine, I began thinking how sometimes we overlook the riches at our fingertips.
In the 50s, Mr. J.E. Vinyard, a produce wholesaler, believed enough in himself and our town to build a big old grocery store. A progressive businessman, his was the first business north of Cypress Creek to put in electric doors.
Today, his son John Keith, who started out mopping in the meat market, rides herd over Vinyard Enterprises’s nine stores spanning east Texas and offering everything from Mexican TV dinners to Russian dressing.
For a vicarious foreign culinary experience, ask Mrs. McNeil, who grew up in the English village of Sturmer, about food there and she describes steam puddings, Irish stews, crumpets and the like.
She’s been here 40 years, ever since she met and married the late Earnest McNeil, Jr. a regular American who was at England serving our air force, but she can still recall the traditional English Christmas dessert, a trifle.
It’s made with sponge cake, English custard, raspberries and whipped cream, cherries, and if you’re at England, throw in several jiggers of sherry, port and brandy. A faithful member of the Neville’s Chapel Baptist Church, Barbara leaves out the last three ingredients.
Listening at Nadine, it came to me it’s my journalistic responsibility to remind people we don’t have to ride a bus to Sulphur Springs to get foreign stuff.
Barbara and I began our tour of Vinyard’s Foods on aisle three, which is where the Chinese food is located. As communism is not catching, it’s okay to eat it.
The food, I mean.
LaChoy Chow Mein Noddles (89 cents) and the sliced bamboo shoots ($1.19) looked pretty so-so.
The best buy was the large LaChoy Sweet and Sour kit for $2.98.
Over by the spaghetti, you got your pastas of the Mediterranean or the orient.
There’s Kraft Italian Dressing ($1.59), Mama Rosa Pepperoni Pizza (two huge ones for $4.99), Chef Boyardee Tostellini or Ravioli with meat sauce ($1.39 a can) and Rome Beauty apples (89 cents a pound).
There’s French dressing, microwaveable French fries, French-cut green beans, and French Onion Dip.
From Germany, you got your sauerkraut and braunschweiger ($1.99 for a 24-oz. chunk.) I’m not sure, but I think “braunschweiger” means “goose liver” in German, so watch it.
Mexican aficionados can find the classic Patio Frozen Food Enchilada Dinner ($1.19) and the El Char Saltillo Dinner (the big one goes for $1.57), and they also have the hard to find stuff like mole sauce ($1.75) and nopalitos, which is pickled cactus. (Where are the bull nettles?)
At the Sweeney household, we’ve had a special liking for Mexican food ever since the summer my nephew, Earl Juan, came up and stayed with us. (My brother met his wife when he was working in Laredo one summer.)
Ever time I open a can of Vienna sausage, (aisle five, 2 cans for $1) my mind whisks me away to the jigsaw puzzle Nadine has framed in the den, a scene of an Austrian castle in the alps.
FOOD: Two and one half stars. My only disappointment was that I couldn’t find any Polish sausage.
SERVICE: Three stars. Barbara McNeil and Assistant Manager Virgie Pilgrim know the store backwards and forwards and couldn’t be any friendlier.
ATMOSPHERE: Two and a half stars. This is a home town, locally-owned full service food store where they sack your groceries and carry them out to the car. Dress is casual. Reservations are not required.
