America: The Cookbook

Langholtz (The New Greenmarket Cookbook) sets out to document all the nooks and crannies of American cuisine, and she succeeds spectacularly. She covers classics such as meat loaf, corn dogs, apple pie, and chocolate chip cookies, but the real thrill is in the quirky regional fare that makes up the majority of the book’s recipes—Kentucky’s hot brown (an open-faced turkey, bacon, and tomato sandwich in cream sauce and browned under a grill); chicken spaghetti from Mississippi (a favorite of one-time New York Times food editor Craig Claiborne); and Hummingbird Cake (a Jamaican banana-pineapple spice cake that appeared in Southern Living in 1978 and is now popular throughout the South). Essays from influential chefs and food writers from each state (Alice Waters from California, Michael Stern from Connecticut, Matt and Ted Lee from South Carolina, etc.) add depth and perspective to the book, expanding on techniques, ingredients, and flavors that have made many of these recipes such an integral part of a state’s culture. Dishes from recent immigrants abound, such as Hmong red curry noodle soup (attributed to the large Hmong populations in Minnesota and Wisconsin), which has become ingrained in the region’s culinary landscape. The book also includes a dish of lamb tenderloins wrapped in saltbush, a Native American cooking technique from Colorado. Rather than simply offering a rote recitation of well-worn classics, Langholtz artfully includes recipes that show America’s kaleidoscopic culinary landscape. (Oct.)