Mimi’s Recipe Box: Goody-Goody Hamburger Sauce

When my sister and I were children, our parents occasionally treated the family to a special dinner at a nearby restaurant, one with real carhop service and trays that attached to the driver’s door. The delivery “Goodette” wore a uniform, complete with a little paper hat.

It was so much fun to eat in the car! In those days, most cars had a high hump on the back seat floor, and it was great fun for us girls to sit on the hump and use the backseat as a table.

In the days before Micky D’s, the best carhop experience was at the Goody-Goody on Salem Avenue. “Goody’s” was well known for several specialties: homemade French fried shoestring potatoes, cream of onion soup, butterscotch pie, and, of course, Goody’s hamburgers with their special sauce.

This was not a mayo-based, pickle-enhanced tartar sauce. And forget catsup and mustard! Goody’s hamburgers were served one way, with dill pickle slices and their proprietary tomato-based sauce. It was a signature feature of their hamburgers, one that raised it quite a few notches above the other restaurants’ burgers.

Several years ago, one of the Dayton papers had articles about local cooks, and one featured a gentleman who also had fond memories of the Goody-Goody. He had experimented with various ingredients and finally arrived at his best recreation of the famous Goody sauce. Naturally, I tried his recipe. I played with it a bit until I was satisfied that it matched as closely as possible my 30-year-old memories.

If you want to try Goody-Goody Sauce, plan ahead. The sauce needs about 3 hours, mostly unattended on the stove. Prepare your favorite hamburger; butter and toast a good hamburger bun; then add Goody sauce and a few dill pickle slices or dill relish. 

You may not want to sit on the back floor of your car to eat it. But I promise it will taste just as good on a picnic table for the Fourth of July.

Goody-Goody Hamburger Sauce

Ingredients

3 T. butter

15 oz. can tomatoes, whole or cut 

1 t. celery seed

1/2 clove garlic, minced

1/4 t. pepper

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. sugar

1 small onion, finely minced (1/4 c.)

1 T. lemon juice

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a small but heavy saucepan. Cook on low heat for 3–4 hours, stirring occasionally. The tomatoes will break up as they cook and will form a thick sauce.

Makes enough for about 8 hamburgers. Serve on a buttered, toasted bun with some pickle slices. Enjoy!