Review of 'Two for the Road' by Jane and Michael Stern

503-248-2015

In Good Taste
located in the Pearl District, Portland, Oregon.
http://www.ingoodtastestore.com

Review of

Two for the Road

Jane and Michael Stern

With gas prices high this summer I slipped into the back seat of Jane and Michael Stern’s car, and “rode” with them through time and across the United States in their new book Two for the Road. When the book opens we are privy to how the Stern’s met at Yale University, and dined on white clam pizza for their first date. They were both art majors and with Michael’s fellowship, they soon found “The fellowship money was diverted from expensive textbooks and art museum field trips to fund a comparative study of the differences among pizzas …” A romance with food had been forged by these intrepid culinary adventurers.

Once school had ended, (remember this was the 1970’s, with many students graduating and having little or no interest in their major, nor the skills to survive) the Sterns turned away from art. Their idea was to write a book about truck-stop dining. A $2,500 advance sent them off to buy a map of the United States and a “vomit green” Chevrolet Suburban. It took five months for them to come up with an eating plan. After drawing a continuous line through forty-eight states they figured it would take them two years of travel, and they would not only “see all the pretty pastel states (but) eat in every one of them.”

As I traveled through the pages and years with the Sterns, watching their relationship hit potholes and drive through back roads, I was constantly reminded of their developing skill with a new literary style about the most humble eateries while others were taking the high road waxing poetic about continental cuisine. The Sterns viewed food as folk art- not high art- and with that said they looked with reverence where others just saw kitsch.

This book isn’t about opening a menu and ordering. It is about the experience of eating in small towns with different customs at each crossroad. How do you blend in for a meal in a small town? In McComb, Mississippi, the Sterns learned how to eat family style at a round table with a lazy Susan built in the middle. “Someone would reach for a piece of fried chicken from the platter, then the next guy would spin the lazy Susan to grab a piece, and pretty soon, like a carousel going full tilt, platters of food would be spinning past…”

In Pendleton, Oregon, they christened the Let’ Er Buck Room as one of the best rodeo bars they’ve encountered. Imbibing three hours before the rodeo began, the Sterns were starving by rodeo time and discovered Mario Zubiria’s Basque Bar-BQ, serving charcoal grilled lamb chunks with grilled onions, green peppers, and mushrooms and also a chorizo sausage made in Boise, Idaho. After the rodeo they sauntered over to Cimmiyotti’s for steaks and “spaghetti from an age of culinary innocence…Soft white noodles were topped with chunky, oregano-flavored red sauce and showers of grated Parmesan cheese.”

They remind us of a culinary history that some would like to forget. There are pages of the Sterns drooling over Jell-o shaking on a buffet line. They tuck into Buntyn’s banana pudding and a divine breakfast on thick unbreakable partitioned blue plastic plates. It’s all in the course of duty and they attack it with gusto.

What culinary memoir would be complete without the inedible? The Sterns calculate they have been on the road 200 days a year, eating twelve meals a day for thirty years: with a total of 72,000 good meals. There were however 427 meals that were so odious that vending food cuisine would sound attractive. The worst dishes were bad “because the very concept of the dish affronts the taste buds.” One such dish was told in hilarious prose about chitlins steamed in vinegar. Enough said.

A road food experience starts by perusing the restaurant. I learned that if there is a pig or cow happily sitting on top of the restaurant, pull in. Also religion plays a big hand in good road food restaurants. The question “What would Jesus eat?” is pondered. Then there are the menus that the Sterns read as cultural anthropology. A whole chapter is dedicated to the romance of menus with the Sterns admitting that they go to Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island to read their collection of vintage menus.

Recipes gleaned from local restaurants end each chapter. Hoppel Poppel sounds suspiciously like our skillet scramble using either beef salami or bacon. Hopkins House Apple Salad with red delicious apples, crushed pineapple, maraschino cherries, coconut flakes, and mayonnaise might not be at my next dinner party but it represents a common addition to southern buffet tables and should be treated as an historical culinary landmark. Each region is represented with down home cooking.

This book is about the Stern’s love affair with American food and contemporary culture. As I climb out of the back seat, I realize how much interesting food is out there quietly sitting under my culinary radar waiting for me to explore. There are menus to be held and expert waitresses to pour my coffee. I can’t wait for gas prices to fall so I can discover my own diners and truck-stops. In the meantime I will savor the stories and recipes that Jane and Michael have written.

Read! Eat! Enjoy!

Judith Bishop