500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: and the Very Best Places to Eat Them [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Jane Stern (Author), Michael Stern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 2009

What are the all-time best dishes America has to offer, the ones you must taste before they vanish, so delicious they deserve to be a Holy Grail for travelers? Where’s the most vibrant Key lime pie in Florida? The most sensational chiles rellenos in New Mexico? The most succulent fried clams on the Eastern Seaboard? The most memorable whoopie pies, gumbos, tacos, cheese steaks, crab feasts? In 500 Things to Eat Before It’s Too Late, "America’s leading authorities on the culinary delights to be found while driving" (Newsweek) return to their favorite subject with a colorful, bursting-at-the-seams life list of America’s must-eats.

Illustrated throughout with mouth-watering color photos and road maps, this indispensable guide is organized by region, then by state. Each entry captures the food in luscious detail and gives the lowdown on the café, roadside stand, or street cart where it’s served. When "bests" abound—hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, apple pie, doughnuts—the Sterns rank their offerings. Sidebars feature profiles of idiosyncratic creators, recipes, and local attractions.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Product Description
What are the all-time best dishes America has to offer, the ones you must taste before they vanish, so delicious they deserve to be a Holy Grail for travelers? Where's the most vibrant Key lime pie in Florida? The most sensational chiles rellenos in New Mexico? The most succulent fried clams on the Eastern Seaboard? The most memorable whoopie pies, gumbos, tacos, cheese steaks, crab feasts? In 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late, "America's leading authorities on the culinary delights to be found while driving" (Newsweek) return to their favorite subject with a colorful, bursting-at-the-seams life list of America's must-eats.

Illustrated throughout with mouth-watering color photos and road maps, this indispensable guide is organized by region, then by state. Each entry captures the food in luscious detail and gives the lowdown on the café, roadside stand, or street cart where it's served. When "bests" abound--hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, apple pie, doughnuts--the Sterns rank their offerings. Sidebars feature profiles of idiosyncratic creators, recipes, and local attractions.

---

Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Jane & Michael Stern, Authors of 500 Things to Eat

Dear Amazon Readers,

Can you believe that when we set out to write a guide to America's best regional food 30+ years ago, there were people in the world of publishing who said it couldn't be done? Back then, the belief among gourmets (the term "foodie" hadn't yet been coined) was that this country did not have too many interesting things to eat! WRONG! We have enjoyed a mighty delicious career proving that America is one appetizing, crazy quilt of amazing things to eat. And today, nobody doubts that fact! Just turn on the TV and you can't miss some wacky TV show taking you to all the great barbecue, chili, burgers, and pizza that we love to write about.

Like the population itself, our national diet is wild, iconoclastic, silly, kitschy, devil-may-care, tradition-minded, and tradition-be-damned. 500 Things to Eat is our Life List: the best of the best; the dishes every food-savvy person needs to eat. So if you haven't yet hit the road with this guidebook in your glove compartment, please "join us" and savor for yourself the memorable meals that all those silly TV food shows can only show you.

—Jane & Michael Stern

(Photo © Todd France)

---

Memorable Mileposts from 500 Things To Eat Before It's Too Late: and the Very Best Places To Eat Them
(Click on Images to Enlarge)

Don't Miss Marquees

Chicken Annies in Pittsburg, KS

Burgerville in Portland, OR

Leonard's Pit Barbecue in Memphis, TN

The Cherry Hut in Beulah, MI

Must-Eat Meals

Deep Fried Hot Dogs at Rawley's in Fairfield, CT

Huckleberry Sundae at Ekstrom's State Station in Clinton, MT

Cinnamon Roll at Gus Balon's in Tucson, AZ

Barbecued Oysters at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, CA

---

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Veteran road dogs and James Beard Award-winning food journalists Jane and Michael Stern (Roadfood, Two for the Road) have what may be their best offering yet in this easy to use, consolidated guide to America's best off-the-beaten-path eateries. Along the way, the Sterns identify the best of everything crave-worthy: regional specialties like cheese steaks in Philly, southern sweets like banana pudding and key lime pie, as well as (admittedly subjective) national rankings for classics like ribs, burgers and French fries. They even scour elusive vendors like Connecticut hot dog wagons and San Francisco taco trucks. Other notable suggestions: a cool glass of the Latino rice milk beverage Horchata at Guelaguetza in L.A., the Northwest's best cup of coffee at Ristretto Roasters in Portland; and the best cherry pie in Michigan at Beulah's Cherry Hut. Homebodies can make do with a handful of recipes (including Cincinnati five way chili, and Massachusetts's Dirt Bomb, a cinnamon and sugar-rolled muffin), but the Sterns' lyrical and enthusiastic field reports, topped off with suggestions for after-meal exploring (Philadelphia's medical anomalies museum, New Orleans's Audobon Insectarium), should be enough to get any reader with a taste for mom-and-pop Americana hungry for the road.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (June 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547059078
• ASIN: B002SB8MOA
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,361 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the Food Road Again, May 24, 2009

By 

wogan "the book reader" - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: and the Very Best Places to Eat Them (Paperback)

On the Road Again

Once again Jane and Michael Stern have come up with a food guide, or rather a guide to places where you can get `real' food. Food that one just longs to eat -pies, ice cream, cake, ribs, just think of anything that you are warned is not health food... that is food to long for. Who wouldn't want to find the best, or the 500 things to eat before it's too late. Now whether that is too late for you or too late for these wonderful places to exist is a matter of conjecture.
The book itself is arranged in a different manner than the Sterns' other food books and most other foodie guides. First there are colored `tabs' for the different regions of the US - New England, Mid Atlantic, South, Midwest, Southwest and Great Plains and West. So you can immediately find the section of the country you want. At the beginning of each chapter is a map with the names of featured towns. Then each state list is divided into foods, such as Crumb Cake, Stuffed Ham, French Fries with the town and page numbers. Once you get used to this style it is easy to find information. The size of the book is very portable. Less than 1 inch thick and approximately 5 x 8 inches. Pages are smooth and colorful with plenty of pictures both of food and the stores themselves.
The back has two indexes; one to eateries, divided by state and city, handy if you are sitting somewhere looking for something other than golden arches and a general index which lists eateries, food, even a few recipes that are included.
Phone numbers, addresses, web sites are included - always helpful information Of course there are the reviews and information, sometimes a history or other fascinating tidbits. Better than just plain information is the poetic love of great food. I was impressed with several regional specialties that you will not find elsewhere and the style with which they are written of. When they write of southern Maryland's little known stuffed ham, they write of a dish that exists no where but in an ancient spit of land where the air smells of the sea - how can you resist the hunt for something like that?
My only complaint and frustration is the placement of National Best lists, which inexplicably are stuck in different places of the book and will for example list a food item from another region of the country -pizza in New England section, but Franks is in Illinois and then is not listed in the Illinois - Midwest section. That makes no sense. But it still isn't frustrating enough to give up on this as a guide, just surprising for what I expect from the Sterns
I have given these books as wedding presents, as going away presents and even to a friend from England who drove cross country - he now thinks America is the greatest country in the galaxy. How else could he or you for that matter find johnnycakes, shoofly pie, conch chowder, cinnamon buns, green corn tamales or huckleberry sweets. This book might be the utmost reason ever for a cross country trip. This is why I use these Road Food books as my traveling and local guides. This is my new guide that I can see will lead us to continued adventures, meeting the locals and going places that we might have by-passed on the super highways of life. Read this, follow some food adventures before it is too late

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, if you're in Connecticut, December 31, 2009

By 

A. Vahrenkamp "travel junkie" (on the road) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: and the Very Best Places to Eat Them (Paperback)

I love the idea of regional American cuisine, and as I travel nearly every week for work, guides like this are a wonderful tool to help find the best local favorites. Generally speaking, this guide is excellent: colorful, descriptive, honest, and well laid out. I have no beef with the "national" sections: comparing fries, pizza, pancakes, burgers, and ribs across the country is a great way to see how varied we still are.

I have a couple of complaints, though. First, Hawaii is completely left off. While I understand that driving to the islands is difficult, any survey of American regional cuisine must include the plate lunch, Waiola shave ice, ramen shops, Leonard's malasadas, Mr. Mandoo's giant steamed Korean buns, and Dim Sum in Chinatown (admittedly, this could have been in San Francisco too).

Second, and on the same trend, Asian food gets amazingly short shrift. I'm glad that many Southwestern and Mexican specialties get a write-up, but to include only Ichiban PB and to leave off such great Asian-American classics as sushi, dim sum, pad thai and more seems wrong. Consider Chinese food, which for generations has been a mainstay of American eating. Completely missing, yet I would argue that American Chinese food is much more American than Chinese.

Third, Connecticut gets WAAAAAAY too much credit. By my count, only California (68) has more entries than Connecticut (56). Illinois (52), New York (40), Tennessee (42), Texas (54), all have fewer great food places than tiny little Connecticut. Massachusetts, with twice the population and a similar ethnic mix, has only 23 entries. I appreciate the Stemed Cheesburger and New Haven pizza, but SEVEN ice cream places (compared to 10 for the other states combined)? That's just ridiculous.

Fourth, too often the authors take the easy way out and recommend the standard tourist-friendly location. Take for instance the Loveless Cafe in Nashville. They have fallen from grace a long time ago, and any Nashvillian will tell you that there are countless better places for country ham, biscuits, and banana pudding. Yet somehow, they still get a glowing recommendation in the book. A similar story in Chicago, where no local will swear by Al's #1 anymore, yet it still gets the #1 rating for Italian Beef.

But these are small things that can easily be fixed in a next edition. After all, when you add up all the foods mentioned, you only come to 269 (including two separate listings for doughnuts). When you add up all the restaurant listings, since most foods have several restaurants listed, you get 931. I don't know where 500 came from, but there are plenty more foods to be added to make a nice round number! Consider buffalo wings, guacamole, lox and bagels, fried green tomatoes, gumbo, green chile, she-crab soup, cornbread... all inexlicably left out.

All in all, a controversial tome, but still well worth enjoying, if for nothing else than to bicker with your friends and family.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Improve the Food Photos!, February 6, 2010

By 

Carol Warren - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: and the Very Best Places to Eat Them (Paperback)

The food photos in this book, which should be a highlight, are awful! Although the text motivates the reader to locate and eat the dishes, the photos are a turnoff. There should also be a link to send the authors the reader's own favorite noshes. For example, if you live in Imperial Beach or Coronado in the San Diego area, the Star-Lite shack's (open whenever the owner feels like it) cake donuts are absolutely amazing. And this reader doesn't even like donuts.