Great American Eating Experiences: Local Specialties, Favorite Restaurants, Food Festivals, Diners, Roadside Stands, and More

by National Geographic Society

Follow the locals to their favorite foods throughout the United States, state by state, with the help of this gorgeously packaged travel planner. Anchored by regional specialties and the best places to sample them, Great American Eating Experiences serves up real-deal comfort foods like New Orleans Po' Boys and Chesapeake crab cakes, sprinkled with fun food factoids, food surprises, and more. Go beyond the Internet basics and discover the country's most authentic food experiences. As an added bonus, GPS coordinates for each destination make sure you don't miss these sometimes hard-to-find secrets.
 
The book is organized state-by-state, highlighting the best regional eating experiences both tried-and-true and unexpected. Among more than 130 festivals, you'll discover a festival celebrating Moxie, a medicinal elixir-turned-soft-drink that is almost exclusively found in Maine; local Michigan spots to try Cudighi—ground sausage sandwich topped with mozzarella and tomato sauce; where to sample Native American fry bread in Arizona and New Mexico; the best places to eat Key lime pie in Florida; the two dueling Philly cheesesteak restaurants in Philadelphia; the New Orleans birthplace of the muffaletta; and much more. This colorful travel planner helps you discover the best local foods and eating experiences throughout the United States.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Travel, Nonfiction, Reference, Food

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. The National Geographic Society's logo is a yellow portrait frame—rectangular in shape—which appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of its magazines and as its television channel logo. Through National Geographic Partners (a joint venture with The Walt Disney Company), the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website, worldwide events, and other media operations.

Reviews

[Theresa Jehlik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the travel guide for the person who wants to experience regional American specialties. Divided into six sections, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Great Plains, Rocky Mountains & Southwest, and West, the book discusses ingredients native to the region (sweet corn, sunflower seeds), regional specialties (Runza, Chislic), and sidebars (Basic Ingredient, Surprise). Each food has its history highlighted in addition to where to find it. Finding it can involve a restaurant, farmer's market, or local festival. The address information also includes GPS coordinates and a website url when available. Two-page spreads on Southern Barbecue, Steak Houses, and Tex-Mex Food compare and contrast regional variations on these foods. It's gorgeously illustrated as only a National Geographic publication can be.

[Carol A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for traveling! It recommends the places to go to get local favorite eats in each state and regional Specialties.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun to look up all the places I've lived to see if I agree with their choices. Many times I did! Two funny things- apparently we should have been stopping in Gnaw Bone on our Brickyard weekends to pick up persimmon pudding and fudge (p. 136), and I need to stop at Bavaria Sausage House on my way home from work to try bierkase (p. 161).

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book to leaf through and revisit places you've lived, traveled to, or have dreamed of visiting. It's attractive and arranged well. My only beef is that I wanted more. You could literally do a book like this for every state.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! A book filled with fun facts and foods from every state across the U.S. This book will inspire you to road trip and taste them for yourself. Great photos as well.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a a really fun book. If you want to plan a food road trip I would use this as a guide!

[Chris Seltzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book suffered from its format in some ways.

Organizing around states rather than cuisines or regions meant either adding fluff for states that were lacking or cutting content from sections like BBQ and Pizza which had to be confined to two pages.

The inclusion of restaurant recommendations means the book will age poorly.

While I did pick up a few hints of things to try, overall the book seemed to have very inconsistent coverage. For Pennsylvania, for instance, it's like the author went to Philadelphia and never even did a quick google search for the rest of the state.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review of regional foods all across the US. The authors describe well-known foods associated with various areas of America and describe restaurants, grocery stores, dives, or gas stations where one might try these specialties. As this is a National Geographic publication, the pictures are wonderful. It's a good reference if one is traveling to another region of the US and want to try new foods.

[Jarrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep dive into the unique restaurants and cuisines of different areas across the United States. While I have had an opportunity to try quite a few of these specialties, it’s always nice to broaden my horizons. And with the exception of a poor representation of a “buckeye,” this reference is exceptional.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a Golden Delicious Apple Festival?! This book just made my day

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book again. It's inspired me to cook dishes in this book and research for more! I've already made Spam Musubi, Polish Boys, Runzas, and more! I love this book for the reasons listed below in my original review:

I love this book because I think it is probably the best one I've read of its kind- at least for a long time.

This book drives me nuts because I now want to quit everything to go around the country eating!

Highly recommended read! Although, you may want to keep a healthy snack on hand...or not.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

good book about food!

[William]

I loved the concept behind this book, and the execution was pretty fantastic, too. It is a little bit hipstery for my taste but not exceedingly so. Basically, they are trying to highlight regional food traditions in the U.S., a topic that I find fascinating.

One problem is that they categorize things by state, when a lot of these foods transcend state boundaries. For example, they gave huckleberries to Montana, when they could have just as easily given them to Idaho. But I can forgive that.

What I can't forgive is them labeling Reno the Basque food Mecca, when that obviously isn't true. Boise is the real choice, N.G. (Really they should have just talked about southern Idaho, northern Nevada, and eastern Oregon as being the site of the major Basque diaspora population in the U.S. But still, I say Boise is easily the Basque capital of that region.)

On the bright side, they covered the Mormon food traditions in their Utah section admirably, not only giving space to the obvious Jell-O and "funeral potatoes" but also to Mormon scones and frog's eye salad, as well. Frog's eye salad, people! That's some quality research.