#70. Chicken salad from Graul's Market!

This Monday morning was particularly dreary.

     Waking up at 6:30 to drive to Towson to take the GRE was already exhausting, but getting out of the test to find a cloudy, rainy day really made me want to go back to sleep. Instead of going right home though, I made a stop at Graul’s Market on Bellona Road in Towson for some of their famous chicken salad and a fun distraction from a rainy day full of typing and research. Graul’s is known as an upscale food and drink market and is a Baltimore favorite from way back. Just walking into Graul’s and seeing all the colorful items on the shelf, most of them different than those on your local grocery chain’s shelves, is always an adventure. The ready-made dinner counter, deli and bakery’s display cases are filled with delicious, home-made foods that make anyone’s mouth water. This is where I found myself at lunchtime today, not knowing if I’d be able to only buy lunch instead of a few carts worth of food.

The first Graul’s market was opened in 1920 by Fred and Esther Graul on East Monument Street in Baltimore City. The second store was opened in Cape St. Claire, outside Annapolis, by Fred and Esther’s son Harold Sr. in 1958, upon Harold’s return from service in World War II. As the Graul family grew, so did the family business, not unlike many others in Baltimore. Harold Graul’s four children each grew up and opened their own Graul’s market, one in Ruxton (where I visited today), one in Lutherville, one in Annapolis, one in Herford and one in Saint Michaels on the Eastern shore. The markets have grown to be popular and sought out destinations for gourmet and high-quality groceries and family traditions for shoppers as well as the Graul family. And just as the stores have become a Maryland tradition, their famous chicken salad has become a sensation as well.

Just my luck, Monday's do have something good about them: Monday's special at the deli is a chicken salad sandwich lunch. Graul’s chicken salad is a Graul family recipe, handed down through generations, and one of the best examples of fresh, home-made foods that Graul’s is famous for. Graul’s Market stores use that same recipe which includes their semi-secret ingredient: home-made mayonnaise. The sandwich comes on bread (I suggest the rye!) with a fresh and crunchy pickle and a bag of chips; grab a glass-bottled artisan soda (such as Boylan Bottling Company sodas) and you still come out under $7 for a gourmet lunch.

Graul’s is marketed (ha ha) at a more upper-middle and upper class clientele, as the foods and brands sold in the stores are a bit more pricey than mass-produced products at mega chain supermarkets. The stores are also located in typically wealthier neighborhoods, but the history of Graul’s is one of humble beginnings. Like Graul’s, Baltimore is an up-and-coming city; more “cosmopolitan” neighborhoods are “reclaimed” in the city every day as fashionable restaurants, bars and boutiques sprout up. But, regardless of how “hip” Baltimore becomes, it’s hard forgetting the city’s roots as a working-class, industrial town while walking down the street and seeing how “Power Plant Live” was actually a power plant, or knowing that crabs and oysters used to be given away for free before they were considered delicacies. The same thing applies to Graul’s market: even though you may be buying a $4 bottle of soda and a bag of gourmet potato chips, the friendliness, homey layout and design of the stores and pride in the chain’s mission on remaining a home-town, local, quality chain is very much reflective of the store’s working-class, family roots. The friendly cashier and beautiful boxed lunch put me in a much better mood and made me feel particularly productive on this rainy Monday.

Oh, and the chicken salad is phenomenal. I wonder what they put in that mayonnaise….

References:
http://www.graulsmarket.com/default.aspx