Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I began this book reading it as though it were a novel--devouring every word. I have driven Route 66 some, have several books about it, and enjoy the lore and history. And I love reading about food of all kinds, as well as cooking. Marian Clark has certainly done a lot of research and included many interesting anecdotes, but I sometimes had the impression that some could have been fleshed out a little more, to advantage. A number of interesting-sounding people and places got only a sentence or two. By the half-way mark in the book, I was convinced that travelers had better be prepared to subsist on chili, pie, salad dressings, and barbecue sauces, if this is a representative cross section of what's available along the Mother Road. Recipes for these seem to make up close to half of the offerings. And by then I was merely scanning the pages.
Michael Wallis's introduction is touching and lyrically written, and a sheer pleasure to read. I'd like to have seen recipes for more of the gustatory delights that he recalls so vividly, but alas, nary an omelette, nor a single biscuit and gravy. 'WAY more than enough gooey desserts for the overweight, glucose-intolerant traveler, though.
The color photos that fill sixteen pages of this Deluxe 75th Anniversary Edition seem to be only of snapshot quality, pretty amateurish, and in my opinion the book deserves better. Some are obviously reproductions of old photos, and can't be helped. The others, though...
So, am I sorry I bought this book? Am I glad to have it in my library? No, and yes. But I'm still disappointed. There are better books on Route 66 out there, and better books on comfort food, though perhaps none that present the two together as this one does. But I have a feeling I'll be referring to those other works more often in the future than I do this one.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Route 66 Cookbook: Comfort Food from the Mother Road Deluxe 75th Anniversary Edition
Next year will mark the 75th anniversary of America's most legendary highway, Route 66. This 2,400-mile stretch of interstate runs across eight states and straight through the American psyche. John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, and carloads of nuclear families from the 1920s to the 1960s threaded their way through the heartland, and the unique restaurants that blossomed along Route 66 are justly celebrated. There are other successful road guides, but Marian Clark's The Route 66 Cookbook is the only culinary guide to what Steinbeck dubbed "The Mother Road." It includes over 250 delicious, time-tested recipes from places like the U Drop Inn, the Covered Wagon Trading Post, the Pig Hip, and the Bungalow Inn. It is also a nostalgic recreation of the Route 66 of the past, with stories from the waitresses and cooks who poured the coffee and baked the pie.With 105 b&w illustrations--as well as a new 16-page color section--this is a gem of Americana, and a treasury of comforting dishes from a time when the flavors along the road changed as dramatically as the landscape and accents as you sped across the heartland.
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