An Unexpected Obsession

I didn’t expect when my sister gave me a slim yellow book for Hanukkah a few years ago that she was launching me head first into a new obsession. I doubt she expected it either: she bought it for me because she saw it on the rack at Barnes and Noble and it “seemed like something I would like.” I already had an affinity for road trips and for food, so her hunch was logical enough. The book in question was Jane and Michael Stern's 500 Things to Eat Before it's Too Late, a guide to the best regional cuisine in the country and where to find it.

(As it happens, the Sterns' book is just the latest in the wave of "things to do before you die" themed books. Those who take their personal bucket lists really, really seriously, can now find whole books devoted to places to go [in the world and in just the US and Canada], albums to listen to, movies to watch, hikes to take. There is a decent chance that the Sterns' choice of "before it's too late" in the title was less an aesthetic choice than a matter of copy-writing. There are at least two other food-related books on the market whose titles include the phrase "before you die." Still, it's a good choice either way. Who wants to be reminded of their impending death while trying to find a decent cheese steak?)

The authors, Jane and Michael Stern (formerly married, but recently divorced) have made a comprehensive study of American "low" cuisine. Their book features lists of basic junk food staples (the best burger, the best pizza, the best fries, the best ice cream) and also more specialized local dishes (the best New England Boiled Dinner, the best Meat and Three, the best Indian pudding). The two of them might be (somewhat charitably) described as sociologists. As Wikipedia puts it, they are “the first food writers to recognize that this food was as worthy to report as was the haute cuisine of other nations.” The two of them are chroniclers and preservers of culture, then – even if there are may be some who doubt whether grilled cheese is worth chronicling.

I learned some time after receiving the book from my sister that the Sterns are essentially the leaders of an underground community, surrounding their “Roadfood” books. The Roadfood website updates frequently with daily restaurant reviews and pictures of blueberry cobbler or fried chicken, and the movement’s disciples (shall we call them Roadfooders?) light up the site’s forums. Their bible, simply called Roadfood, is now in its ninth edition, and unlike 500 Things to Eat Before it's Too Late, focuses slightly more on the restaurant than on the food served there. As a result, some of the entries in Roadfood are more famous for being local institutions than for serving a particularly notable type of food. The Sterns’ lists essentially constitute an American Food Hall of Fame, and as with any such list, it is bound to generate controversy among those who care about this sort of thing. I have to say that I have agreed with their lists on about nine out of ten occasions, although a small handful of their selections seem to miss the mark (at least they did when I visited). There are also, it seems to me, some egregious omissions.

 

I check the Roadfood website from time to time (they have a cool map feature that marks all of the Roadfood destinations within a 50 miles radius of your location), but I don’t post on the forums. I am, however, deeply into Roadfood, and for the past four plus years, the book has provided me with a treasure map. My goal is to visit as many Roadfood stops as it is possible for me to do. This isn’t always easy. I’m a teacher, so I do have long vacations on which to take road trips. But I am bound by all of the normal factors that keep people from freely bouncing around the country: finances, professional obligations, the fact that I am in relatively good physical shape and that frequent consumption of Roadfood may hinder my ability to stay that way, the fact that I have to occasionally use vacations to visit family and friends, and the fact that I have a wife who would sometimes rather not spend the afternoon going on a quest for the third best ham in Virginia. She’s a good sport though, my wife, and she has been a willing co-pilot on most of our trips. We’ve had a few regrets (she’ll probably never let me live down that detour to a subpar burger place in Delaware), but overall, Roadfood has provided us with – I mean this in all sincerity – some of the happiest memories in our marriage.

This blog is the story of my unlikely, and admittedly kind of weird, love of Roadfood. Each entry tells an anecdote about my visit to one of the stops featured (or formerly featured) in either the book or the website. I don’t plan to do any research, other than actually visiting the places I write about. (Why attempt to rehash the very thorough work of the Sterns, which sometimes provides a brief history of the restaurant and a range of menu prices?) I would much rather write about my own subjective personal experience: when I went, who accompanied me, how I got there and, oh yeah, maybe a little about the food.