Okay, let's watch a commercial I saw incessantly when I was a kid — a spot for Andersen's Split Pea Soup. In fact, let's discuss pea soup in some depth.
I didn't know it when I was seeing this commercial every eight minutes on my TV but the voices were done by the great Bob and Ray. Bob Elliott had the lead role and then he and Ray Goulding played the chefs. The commercial was designed by Paul Kim, who was responsible for a lot of ads produced in New York in the fifties.
I used to love Andersen's Split Pea Soup…or at least the version served in their signature restaurant in the little town of Buellton, California. Buellton is (I just Mapquested it) 138 miles northwest of Los Angeles and is known for that restaurant and almost nothing else. The restaurant used to be alongside Highway 101 and there was a California tradition: When one was driving from L.A. to San Francisco or vice-versa, one would stop off in Buellton for a bowl of guess what at Pea Soup Andersen's. A lot of people would also spend a few hours in Solvang, a nearby city with a Danish motif and wonderful gift shops and bakeries.
Split Pea Andersen's is a bit farther off the 101 than it used to be but it hasn't moved. The 101 did. In the early sixties, the freeway was rerouted and the old 101 is now the main street of Buellton. Still, people hop off the 101 to eat pea soup. It's been years since I've been there but I'll bet people still do. I remember a couple of trips with my parents in the sixties where we wasted an hour of vacation time waiting for a table there. The menu was coffee shop standard and a common meal was to order a sandwich and "all you can eat" pea soup. Your waitress would roll a little soup cart to your table and fill or top off your bowl.
The pea soup was great and I assume it's still great. On the other hand, the canned version of it, which this commercial promotes, always disappointed me.
What I really liked was the version of it my mother made. Someone gave her what was alleged to be the Pea Soup Andersen recipe. I doubt it was that but it was pretty good…and quite labor-intensive so she didn't make it as often as I would have liked. These days, my favorite Split Pea Soup is served at Canter's Delicatessen on Fairfax in Los Angeles, but they only have it on Wednesdays.
Okay, that's a lot more about Split Pea Soup than you could possibly want to know. Here's the commercial that got me to thinking about it…
