Not far from where the Cleveland Indians are engaged in spring training is a mother-lode of "Cracker food," as 78 year-old Carl Allen calls it. His Allen's Historical Cafe, at the edge of Route 92 near Auburndale serves up alligator, fried green tomatoes, catfish and swamp cabbage, along with dishes more familiar to a northerner's palate.

He's proud to be a "cracker," an often derogatory term for Florida natives accustomed to making both their livelihoods and their meals from the land. Allen says the expression originated with northerners who came to Florida in the early days as land speculators. "Early settlers would crack their whips as they walked in order to scare them away," he said.

Today, however, the term is more associated with hardworking country folk. "Ever hear the expression 'root hog or die poor'?" Allen asks us. "It means the ole boy sittin' on the park bench is like an old hog. If he don't root, he die."

Carl Allen was just a boy in the 1920s when he learned how to dismember a cabbage palm to get at the sweet heart inside at makes the delicious swamp cabbage he still serves at his restaurant. "I've never met a person who doesn't like it," he says. "Knowing how to clean it is the secret. It's bitter otherwise."

The walls and ceilings of the cafe at the edge of the highway are filled with collections Allen amassed during his lifetime in Central Florida. He remembers when Auburndale looked like the old western town depicted in a painting that has a place of honor in the front room. "I have more than 20,000 things here," he says about the collections of door knobs, animals heads, gimcracks and whatzits that line the walls and stretch up over the ceilings of his five-room restaurant. "I get offers from antique dealers everyday, but I won't sell a thing."

Although Allen writes a nostalgia column for the Lakeland newspaper, he's not convinced the old days were really that much better. "It's a lot easier to buy soap than to make it," he admits. But he laments the dishonesty he sees much more often these days. "Someone stole my chastity belt," he says, motioning to a blank space on the wail where it been displayed. "So we had to install a security system."

There's a stuffed-bear near the door, glass cases filled with arrowheads, Civil War statues, fans, telegraph keys, cash registers, old telephones, pots and pans, and a curious doorside contraption where fresh eggs could be left when milk was delivered. The collections are meticulously free from dust and cobwebs and each item in the restaurant's five rooms is carefully labeled with its identity, era, and use.

Tables, each painstakingly decoupaged by Jewell Allen, all have different themes. One is covered with kitties, another with cowboys, a third with bird pictures.

Jewell and Carl have been married more than 40 years.

"She's the love of my life," he says, giving his petite wife a hearty squeeze. The couple is on hand every day at the restaurant, which has a loyal following among locals, and they often greet passersby personally. "I love people," Carl says, unabashedly. "There's nothing getter than getting to know folks."

Stop at the couple's restaurant for an inexpensive lunch and sample old time good cooking, 'like peanut chicken soup, Jalapeno, hush puppies, fried green tomatoes, corn fritters, grouper, alligator and, of course, swamp cabbage. Prices are cheap to reasonable.