Contemporary Usage
Road food experts Jane and Michael Stern entitled their 2001 guidebook "Blue Plate Specials and Blue Ribbon Chefs: The Heart And Soul Of America's Great Roadside Restaurants".
In contemporary use, a "blue-plate special" can be any inexpensive full meal, any daily selection, or merely a whimsical phrasing. A travel columnist says that a Portland, Maine eatery offers "budget blue-plate specials along with more refined fare." The Turner South cable channel calls a daily movie selection, scheduled at lunchtime, its "blue-plate special". Mystery writer Abigail Padgett's second novel about amateur sleuth Blue McCarron is entitled The Last Blue Plate Special; no meals here, the blue plates are part of the decor at a clinic where patients are dying mysteriously. A reviewer uses the headline "The Red, White and Blue Plate Special" for a review of a book on "Diners, Bowling Alleys, and Trailer Parks". There is of course (at least one) blues band named Blue Plate Special. Boston Children's Museum presents a participatory-theatre show, sponsored by health insurer Blue Cross, which teaches good nutrition; the show is called "Blue Plate Special".
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