Food Americana: The Remarkable People and Incredible Stories Behind America's Favorite Dishes

What is American cuisine? What national menu do we share? What dishes have we chosen, how did they become "American," and how are they likely to evolve from here? In Food Americana, David Page answers all these questions and more. America is more than just a fast food nation. Food Americana is the inside story of how generations of Americans have formed a national cuisine with tastes from all over the world. Fried chicken was a distinctly southern dish--now it's the Sunday night special at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood. A Utah restaurant won Maine's annual Best Lobster Roll competition. And perhaps the ultimate all-American dish, pizza, is served up in thirty different styles, a total of three billion pies a year, an average of twenty-three pounds for each of us. Food Americana is an engaging and entertaining combination of food culture and pop culture, nostalgia and the newest food obsessions. Creating Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and hands-on producing its first eleven seasons gave food journalist David Page an appetite for the world of American food. It is that experience, the discoveries of little-known stories and facts, that led him to dig even deeper and tie the strands together now.