• Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food
• Gourmet
• RoadFood.com
• Buffalo, NY's beef on weck
• Henderson, KY's Bon Ton Mini Mart
• Bluff City, TN's Ridgewood Barbecue
• New Haven, CT's Pepe's Pizzeria

Two for the Road

Jane and Michael Stern are the classic love story, with a delicious twist. Boy meets girl. Boy takes girl for a roadside white clam pizza. Boy and girl travel 3 million miles to eat 72,000 meals and document the evolution of American roadside dining.

Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food gives you a look into the Sterns' lives on the road while offering you travel tips and cooking recipes. The Sterns, both 59, coined the term "roadfood" to describe unique, roadside diners and markets; over the past three decades, they've parlayed their love of small-town American fare into several best-selling books, a monthly column for Gourmet magazine, and a hit Web site, RoadFood.com. Every year, they leave their home in West Redding, CT, and spend between 150 and 200 days on the highways and interstates.

Turns out that eating on the road isn't just a way to fuel up for the drive . . . it's also a way to get a taste of some of the best that small U.S. towns have to offer.

We asked them to take us behind the wheel of their new book and became true roadside food epicureans in the process.

Is roadfood a distinctly American concept?

Michael: With American food, there's no canon, no correct way to make a dish like in China or France. What people love about the road isn't just food - it's immersing yourself in American culture and seeing small-town life. It's that passion that you don't get in franchise restaurants. It's the magic that holds roadfood together.

How should a great roadfood quest begin?

Michael: The first thing I suggest is having some knowledge of the area. Read up on it; there are a lot of great regions that have wonderful food, like the beef on weck, (thinly sliced roast beef on a Kaiser roll) in Buffalo, NY. We get lots of suggestions now that the RoadFood.com Web site exists. It used to be more about getting lost and stumbling on a place. With the site, however, people have a place they can reference.

Are there any warning signs you should look for that point to a roadside eatery you should avoid?

Michael: Be leery of modern retro diners. Places that try to look like diners are way too cute about it. We've been tricked before by places that looked like they had been around for years.

Jane: We've developed roadfood radar over the years, and there are symbols that speak to us. We don't like restaurants that say "world famous" or have signs saying "tour buses welcome." If it smells good, that's always a great sign. Watch out for pigs and cows on a roof too - those places always seem to have good food.

Do you have any absolutely favorite roadside places?

Jane: The fried chicken at the Bon Ton Mini Mart in Henderson, KY. It's spicy and crunchy and wonderful - with cayenne pepper and garlic bursting through the dark crust.

Michael: We also love Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, TN. It's wonderful old-fashioned barbecue in the "hills and hollers."

Each chapter ends with a recipe. Do you try to recreate your favorite dishes once you get home?

Jane: We love to bring food home. Our pantry has a little bit from every trip. We've made our version of Pepe's pizza in Connecticut and Bon Ton fried chicken, but part of the charm of eating at roadfood places is that you're actually eating at roadfood places.

Michael: We collect recipes, but we can never recreate the magic of eating at the restaurant.

 

Posted on July 17, 2006