Cafe Indiana: A Guide to Indiana’s Down-Home Cafes

by Joanne Raetz Stuttgen

Cafe Indiana is both a guide to Indiana’s hometown mom-and-pop restaurants and a reclamation and celebration of small-town Midwest culture. The hungry diner looking for adventure and authenticity can use Cafe Indiana simply as a guide to the state’s quintessential the best fiddlers, macaroni and cheese, soup beans, and beef Manhattan. But Stuttgen also captures the spirit of the locals, bringing to life the people whose stories give the book—and the food—its soul.
     Over plates of chicken and noodles, fried bologna sandwiches, and sugar cream pie, folks are crafting community at the Main Street eatery. In Cafe Indiana , Hoosiers and out-of-staters alike are invited to pull out a chair and sit a spell.

286 pages, Paperback

First published July 9, 2007

Reviews

[Daina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really want a tenderloin sandwich, so big it dwarfs the bun. With mustard and pickles. I would also like sugar cream pie, chicken and noodles, fried pickles, sausage gravy, and/or beef manhatten. I will happily be fat forever, because god damn I love my Midwest heartland food. Time to go make chickpea salad and rice for lunch -- stupid California. It's ok, I will go visit the fine small town cafes of Ohio and Indiana this summer and stock up for the lean times. This book makes me hungry and homesick.