Real American Food

For foodies, wordsmiths, and anyone who loves to eat, an illustrated guide to authentic American fare, from the beloved Roadfood team In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. In The Lexicon of Real American Food, renowned foodies Jane and Michael Stern record the lingo of American food as it is spoken—and enjoyed—across the nation. With their signature wit and exuberance, they define how America really eats—to the delight of food lovers and word aficionados everywhere. Fun to read and easy to browse, with spot illustrations and select recipes, this book will also become a valuable reference to document regional specialties and signature American fare. Since the first edition in their Roadfood series in 1978, the Sterns have reported on more than 100,000 meals at America’s tables and cafe counters alongside people of every stripe; and in doing so they have gained an unequalled sense of real American food. Thus, the food described in these pages is democratic, not elitist—from hoppel-poppel to puffy tacos, The Sterns see the nation’s diet like its language: endlessly, endearingly exuberant. Their Lexicon of Real American Food inspires a new and joyful appreciation of our country’s irrepressible foodways.

Real American Food draws from Burt Wolf's lifetime of experiences traveling the country producing programming for PBS. Packed with fascinating trivia and history, this book defines the distinctive contributions of key regions to American cuisine.

The first and greatest book of regional American cuisine, now revised for today’s home cook. Imagine a person with the culinary acumen of Julia Child, the inquisitiveness of Margaret Mead, and the daring of Amelia Earhart. This is Clementine Paddleford, America’s first food journalist. In the 1930s, Paddleford set out to do something no one had done before: chronicle regional American food. Writing for the New York Herald Tribune, Gourmet, and This Week, she crisscrossed the nation, piloting a propeller plane, to interview real home cooks and discover their local specialties. The Great American Cookbook is the culmination of Paddleford’s career. A best seller when first published in 1960 as How America Eats, this coveted classic has been out of print for thirty years. Here are more than 500 of Paddleford’s best recipes, all adapted for contemporary kitchens. From New England there is Real Clam Chowder; from the South, Fresh Peach Ice Cream; from the Southwest, Albondigas Soup; from California, Arroz con Pollo. Behind all the recipes are extraordinary stories, which make this not just a cookbook but also a portrait of America.

Today a buck gets you a quick burger (or two), but what’s the real cost of that meal? The rates of chronic disease—specifically diseases like diabetes, caused by our lifestyles—have grown exponentially in recent years, edging medical expenses ever higher while threatening to give America its first generation to actually live shorter lives than their parents. Unfortunately finding good nutrition is no walk in the park, with more and more Americans living in cities, far from a farmer’s field. To overcome distance and undercut price, we rely on industry to put dinner on the table— yet this system has valued efficiency and short-term profits over our own health and the health of our environment. So how do we keep America thriving? Congressman Tim Ryan may have a soft spot for chicken wings and ice cream, but he also knows the joy of farm-fresh produce and the feel of soil between his fingers. Here he presents easy, actionable steps that anyone can take, from starting an herb garden on your windowsill to helping implement food education in your child’s school to petitioning your elected officials. Ryan also introduces some of the current food revolutionaries, who are shining examples of people who saw a problem with how we think about food today, rolled up their sleeves, and raised a crop of positive change. The commonsense ideas in these pages come big (replacing dilapidated neighborhoods with farms) and small (sitting down for a fresh, healthy meal with your family), and each will help you improve the quality of life for you and future generations.

Profiling 48 classic American foods ranging from junk and fast food to main dishes to desserts, this book reveals what made these dishes iconic in American pop culture. Americans have increasingly embraced food culture, a fact proven by the rising popularity of celebrity chefs and the prominence of television shows celebrating food themes. This fascinating overview reveals the surprising story behind the foods America loves. The Story Behind the Dish: Classic American Foods is an engaging pop culture resource which helps tell the story of American food. Each chapter is devoted to one of 48 distinctive American dishes and features the story of where the food developed, what inspired its creation, and how it has evolved. The book not only covers each food as a single entry, but also analyzes the themes and events that connect them, making the text useful as both a reference and a narrative on the history of food.

We have a growing hunger to know where our food comes from. In our increasingly corporate world, we are looking to get back in touch with our roots to the land. American Artisanal feeds this hunger as no book has before. The book celebrates eighteen of America’s leading food artisans–from Wood Prairie Farms potatoes in Maine to L. L. Lanier Honey in Florida, from Reed’s Ginger Brew in California to Earthy Delights mushrooms in Michigan. These are folks who are returning to the basics of sustainable, small-scale, or just plain high quality production. Food is a second career for many of these producers, who decided to drop out of the office rat race and pursue their real passion, literally in the field. In their inspirational stories we also can see the emergence of a true national cuisine. Also, woven throughout each chapter is the engaging history behind our foods–their natural origins and long journeys to cultivation. Recipes and ordering information are provided so you can enjoy these culinary delights at home.

Martha Stewart, who has so significantly influenced the American table, collects her favorite national dishes--as well as the stories and traditions behind them--in this love letter to American food featuring 200 recipes. These are recipes that will delight you with nostalgia, inspire you, and teach you about our nation by way of its regions and their distinctive flavors. Above all, these are time-honored recipes that you will turn to again and again. Organized geographically, the 200 recipes in Martha’s American Food include main dishes such as comforting Chicken Pot Pies, easy Grilled Fish Tacos, irresistible Barbecued Ribs, and hearty New England Clam Chowder. Here, too, are thoroughly modern starters, sides, and one-dish meals that harness the bounty of each region’s seasons and landscape: Hot Crab Dip, Tequila-Grilled Shrimp, Indiana Succotash, Chicken and Andouille Gumbo, Grilled Bacon-Wrapped Whitefish, and Whole-Wheat Spaghetti with Meyer Lemon, Arugula, and Pistachios. And you will want to leave room for dessert, with dozens of treats such as Chocolate-Bourbon Pecan Pie, New York Cheesecake, and Peach and Berry Cobbler. Through sidebars about the flavors that define each region and stunning photography that brings the foods—and the places with which we identify them—to life, Martha celebrates the unique character of each part of the country. With all the dishes that inspire pride in our national cuisine, Martha’s American Food gathers, in one place, the recipes that will surely please your family and friends for generations to come.

Food studies, once trendy, has settled into the public arena. In the academy, scholarship on food and literary culture constitutes a growing river within literary and cultural studies, but writing on African American food and dining remains a tributary. Recipes for Respect bridges this gap, illuminating the role of foodways in African American culture as well as the contributions of Black cooks and chefs to what has been considered the mainstream. Beginning in the early nineteenth century and continuing nearly to the present day, African Americans have often been stereotyped as illiterate kitchen geniuses. Rafia Zafar addresses this error, highlighting the long history of accomplished African Americans within our culinary traditions, as well as the literary and entrepreneurial strategies for civil rights and respectability woven into the written records of dining, cooking, and serving. Whether revealed in cookbooks or fiction, memoirs or hotel-keeping manuals, agricultural extension bulletins or library collections, foodways knowledge sustained Black strategies for self-reliance and dignity, the preservation of historical memory, and civil rights and social mobility. If, to follow Mary Douglas’s dictum, food is a field of action—that is, a venue for social intimacy, exchange, or aggression—African American writing about foodways constitutes an underappreciated critique of the racialized social and intellectual spaces of the United States.

An illustrated journey through the lore and little-known history behind ambrosia, Ipswich clams, Buffalo hot wings, and more. This captivating and surprising tour of America’s culinary canon celebrates the variety, charm, and occasionally dubious lore of the foods we love to eat, as well as the under-sung heroes who made them. Every chapter, organized from A to Z, delves into the history of a classic dish or ingredient, most so common—like ketchup—that we take them for granted. These distinctly American foods, from Blueberries and Fortune Cookies to Pepperoni, Hot Wings, Shrimp and Grits, Queso, and yes, even Xanthan Gum, have rich and complex back stories that are often hidden in plain sight, lost to urban myth and misinformation. American Food: A Not-So-Serious History digs deep to tell the compelling tales of some of our most ordinary foods and what they say about who we are—and who, perhaps, we are becoming.

The hugely successful Mr. Food delivers again with a new collection of simple and scrumptious recipes celebrating our country's culinary melting pot. From Tennessee to Texas, from California to Connecticut, Ginsburg serves up an all-American-caliber performance. "The best-loved TV chef in the country".--Newsweek.