Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)On the Road Again
Once again Jane and Michael Stern have come up with a food guide, or rather a guide to places where you can get `real' food. Food that one just longs to eat -pies, ice cream, cake, ribs, just think of anything that you are warned is not health food... that is food to long for. Who wouldn't want to find the best, or the 500 things to eat before it's too late. Now whether that is too late for you or too late for these wonderful places to exist is a matter of conjecture.
The book itself is arranged in a different manner than the Sterns' other food books and most other foodie guides. First there are colored `tabs' for the different regions of the US - New England, Mid Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest and Great Plains and West. So you can immediately find the section of the country you want. At the beginning of each chapter is a map with the names of featured towns. Then each state list is divided into foods, such as Crumb Cake, Stuffed Ham, French Fries with the town and page numbers. Once you get used to this style it is easy to find information. The size of the book is very portable. Less than 1 inch thick and approximately 5 x 8 inches. Pages are smooth and colorful with plenty of pictures both of food and the stores themselves.
The back has two indexes; one to eateries, divided by state and city, handy if you are sitting somewhere looking for something other than golden arches and a general index which lists eateries, food, even a few recipes that are included.
Phone numbers, addresses, web sites are included - always helpful information Of course there are the reviews and information, sometimes a history or other fascinating tidbits. Better than just plain information is the poetic love of great food. I was impressed with several regional specialties that you will not find elsewhere and the style with which they are written of. When they write of southern Maryland's little known stuffed ham, they write of a dish that exists no where but in an ancient spit of land where the air smells of the sea - how can you resist the hunt for something like that?
My only complaint and frustration is the placement of National Best lists, which inexplicably are stuck in different places of the book and will for example list a food item from another region of the country -pizza in New England section, but Franks is in Illinois and then is not listed in the Illinois - Midwest section. That makes no sense. But it still isn't frustrating enough to give up on this as a guide, just surprising for what I expect from the Sterns
I have given these books as wedding presents, as going away presents and even to a friend from England who drove cross country - he now thinks America is the greatest country in the galaxy. How else could he or you for that matter find johnnycakes, shoofly pie, conch chowder, cinnamon buns, green corn tamales or huckleberry sweets. This book might be the utmost reason ever for a cross country trip. This is why I use these Road Food books as my traveling and local guides. This is my new guide that I can see will lead us to continued adventures, meeting the locals and going places that we might have by-passed on the super highways of life. Read this, follow some food adventures before it is too late
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