Food Americana (Affiliate Link) is a new book by David Page who is the creator of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Though it is peppered with recipes, I would not call it a cookbook.
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Food Americana by David Page
Contained within the pages of this new book is food journalism at its best. In Food Americana David Page uncovers those backstories of American food that we rarely hear about.
When David Page created his ground breaking show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives he changed the world of food television. He won two Emmys for his part in creating, developing and executive producing this show, that I personally love to binge watch.
As we traverse the country, Steve and I love to check out place that are featured on Triple D. Each time we remark about how yummy the food is in these little local eateries. In Food Americana Page offers an entertaining mix of food culture, pop culture, nostalgia and insight into everything that’s new on the American plate.
Have you ever asked questions like: What is American cuisine? What dishes have we chosen to be American? How did certain dishes come to be know as American? This is where David Page excels. He answers those questions and more by relating to us the remarkable history of American food.
We have spent a good bit of time in both North and South Carolina enjoying the cuisine in each
In Food Americana we get the engaging, insightful and often humorous inside story of how Americans have created a national cuisine from a global gamut of flavors. Tacos, pizza, sushi, bagels, barbecue, dim sum, burgers, fried chicken, ice cream; this list could go on forever but all of them were born somewhere else and transformed into our unique American cuisine.
Food Americana is a thought provoking journey into all that we eat and why we eat it. From a lobster boat off the coast of Maine to the Memphis in May barbecue competition. From the century-old Russ and Daughters lox and bagels shop in lower Manhattan to the Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival. From a thousand-dollar Chinese meal in San Francisco to birria tacos from a food truck in South Philly.
A book like Food Americana is why I prefer cookbooks, food journalism and all things food related over reading novels. In this book you will get to meet some very engaging characters and legends such as Alice Waters, Daniel Boulud, Jerry Greenfield (of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream fame) and Mel Brooks. That’s a pretty diverse cast of characters for sure!
There’s a story in the Preface that David Page relates about the “Jewish spaghetti” that his grandmother used to make for him with boiled pasta that was then fried in a pan with onions and ketchup. He says it was as awful as it sounds. But I can truly relate to that. My mother (of blessed memory) made spaghetti and meatballs with no relation to Italy what so ever! Yes there was spaghetti and there were meatballs involved.But the sauce was right from a can of…wait for it…Sauce Arturo. I suppose the name Arturo made it Italian. Certainly not the sweet tomato sauce with rubbery canned mushrooms. I do suppose it was better than Page’s grandmother’s Jewish spaghetti; but not much.
When the pandemic hit Americans found it necessary to rethink something as basic as how to eat. Though the essence of American cuisine didn’t change our manner of getting it did. Now we’re having pizza delivered, we pick up a breakfast bagel with a shmear from a drive-thru and quickly run into a convenience store with masks in place to get our grab-and-go sushi fix. These are all examples of food from other countries that we have adopted as our own.
As The Traveling Locavores we continue to enjoy the signature dishes of each state we travel to!
Food Americana by David Page is the story of your family and ours and how the cuisines of our ancestors became woven into American cuisine.
