A TASTE OF AMERICA

by Jane & Michael Stern Stern ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 1988

For fifteen years we have had the world's greatest job,"" declare the authors of Roadfood (1978) and Square Meals (1984). ""We drive around America eating the best food we can find, then we tell people about it in our books and in a weekly newspaper column called A Taste of America."" Reprinted here, then, are some of their favorite columns, each one lauding some obscure and unaffected eatery and featuring a recipe that typifies the establishment's ""colloquial cuisine."" The Sterns go in for cooking like Mom's--their worst insult is ""hifalutin""--and they delight in quaint and corny names, crowing over their discovery of quahog hash from the Kountry Kitchen in Connecticut, truck-stop corn chowder from Keep on Truckin Cafe in Vermont, fried okra from Ruth and Jimmie's Sporting Goods and Cafe in Mississippi, and ""throwed rolls"" from Missouri's Lambert's Cafe, which makes up for its straightforward name by covering it walls with mule pictures and throwing hot rolls from the stove to the diners. Some of the Sterns' choices (canned fruit cocktail, pineapple pizza) do seem perverse, paraded, one suspects, to epater les gourmets. But this pair has gone far with its appreciation of America's bas cuisine. Mostly, it is genuine cooking that the Sterns seek out and spotlight, and their genuine gusto is infectious.

Pub Date: Oct. 14, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Andrews & McNeel

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION