Salem, CT Restaurants, Restaurant Menus & Dining
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The name Salem originates from the Hebrew word Shalom, meaning peace, which certainly describes this town’s past, present, and probably its future. Its pastoral setting of hills, wetlands and open fields gives Salem a distinct appeal. A fitting introduction to the caring and friendly attitude that pervades Salem is the annual land trust picnic that takes place at the Mitchell Equine Retirement Farm, where senior horses are given the opportunity to live out their lives in a particularly bucolic setting. The local bluegrass musicians who serenade visitors and friends come from a long tradition of string band music in the area where country means country. But Salem’s music history is not just country.  Oramel Whittlesey’s 19th century Music Vale Seminary was America’s first to confer music teaching degrees, bringing Salem to national cultural prominence.  But in 2006, little Salem went “national” again.  A commemorative U.S. postage stamp was issued honoring lifetime Salem resident Hiram Bingham IV.  Bingham, while Vice Consul in Nazi occupied France, deliberately, and at risk to his own career and life, defied U.S. State Department policy by issuing visas to Jews destined for Nazi concentration camps. He thereby saved up to 2,500 lives including that of artist Marc Chagall, who painted the original “Fiddler on the Roof.”  Currently, it is Bingham land that protects those retired horses. Salem’s website makes it clear that incoming businesses would need to be compatible with the many active farms and easygoing way of life that make this town so uniquely special.