Tuesday, December 14

twain's feast

In the winter of 1879, Mark Twain paused during a tour of Europe to compose a fantasy menu of the American dishes he missed the most. He was desperately sick of European hotel cooking, and his menu, made of of some eighty regional specialties, was a true love letter to American food: Lake Trout, from Tahoe. Hot biscuits, Southern style. Canvasback duck, from Baltimore. Black bass, from the Mississippi.

In Twain’s Feast, [author] Andrew Beahrs sets out to discover whether eight of Twain’s forgotten wild, regional specialties can still be found on American tables, tracing Twain’s footsteps as he goes.
-from Twain's Feast
That is from the back cover. Pretty much sold me. Had a quick flip through and writing looks enjoyable (the author's wife warns he will become the "freaky Twain guy", classic). If you were scared off by the 200 pages of scholarly intro to Twain's autobiog' volume 1 this book might be a good option...

You can pre-read a bunch of it via googlebooks