Eat This!

May 14, 2007
J
ackman's compendium of American foods and foodstuffs is an informational tour-de-force, a guidebook suitable for everyone from the couch potato to the frequent flyer. In the interest of finding out where to get the best, whether it's organic produce or fast food, delivery or fine dining, the author has eaten widely if not always well. Wondered when your favorite ready-to-eat cereal hit the market? What a runza is? Where to go for your last meal on earth? Jackman, who was the managing director of the Modern Library and coauthor of Stickin'
, includes all the foods and facts, from coast to coast (and including Alaska and Hawaii). The book is organized about as well as something so wide-ranging can be without tilting into a work of reference. The first part, “Eating In,” isn't a how-to-eat-better so much as a how-to-eat-the-best-possible. Its second, larger part, “Eating Out,” might make one want to cash in an IRA and hit the road for a year or two to eat everything he's listed. Readers will soon find themselves flipping the pages from restaurant to dish, and that's when they'll start fingering their car keys—it's just the thing for the summer travel season.