I purchased this book at our yearly homeschooling convention in Florida with the intent of using it as a fun supplement to our study of the 50 states. While the idea is a great one - preparing and eating foods peculiar to each individual state - the execution leaves a lot to be desired. There is not much appealing about the recipes that use margarine, canned soups, evaporated milk and other unappetizing and less than healthy ingredients. There is frequently no explanation for why a food was chosen other than it was a recipe given to the author by someone who happened to live in that state. I live in Florida but that doesn't mean that all of my recipes are authentic Floridian foods - why does someone's cousin-in-law from Pennsylvania's cream of chicken soup casserole qualify as authentic Pennsylvania fare? We have had more success using the cookbook as a jumping off point in our own search for authentic state foods than using the actual recipes - although a few have been good most have been less than stellar. It really was irritating to consider all the myriad Pennsylvania Dutch foods that COULD have been included but weren't. That seems to be a common problem with most of the states we have covered so far. Doing an internet search using the official websites for each state has yielded much tastier, more imaginative foods for our family's study. I'm keeping a file of all the official state foods we discover - who knows, we may publish our own cookbook when we're done!
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