Paper Palate

Jane and Michael Stern have become giants in the world of American food; their travels up and down the highways and byways of the nation in search of delicious local specialties in the greasy-spoon diners, tearooms, truck stops and roadside cafes that grace the roadsides have become a mythic journey that Joseph Campbell himself would recognize as a heroic quest.

Finally, the James Beard Lifetime Achievement award winning authors of Roadfood, have brought us an autobiography that sheds some light on the hows and whys behind their obsessive desire to chronicle the best local small eateries in the US. Unsurprisingly, the book is a damned fun read, with the Sterns painting heroic portraits of a memorable cast of thousands, while often using their own foibles and phobias as comic relief.

Here, for example, we learn that Michael is the more adventurous eater, with Jane declining to partake of dishes that include suspicious ingredients such as organ meats. There are a few incidents, however, of horrendously stinky organ meat viands that are beyond even Michael’s prodigious abilities of ingestion, and which cause the normally obsessively cleanly and ecologically-capable Sterns to simply throw the entire mess out of the window of their car.

There are other horrific moments. The chapter entitled, “Twelve Meals a Day,” is one long narrative of agony; I am not surprised to hear that the Sterns eat so many times a day in order to cover the depth and breadth of the rural foods of the US, but I am still terrified at the thought of that many calories consumed in a day anyway. It makes my own stomach cringe and shudder in empathic agony; even at my own most gluttonous, such extended stints of professional eating are beyond my ken. The mere thought of twelve meals a day, some of them not stellar, takes much of the romance out of the thought of writing about roadfood.

I admit it; I must bow to the Stern’s superior ability to eat everything and still come back for more.

I think that the parts of the book that were the most fun were where the Sterns profiled the cooks, waitresses and customers who inhabit the little cafes, roadhouses and truck stops that form the setting of Two for the Road. These folks are the real heroes of the story, and the Sterns do not stint as they season their narrative with the peppery bits of wisdom from the “just plain folks” like the residents of Havanna, North Dakota, who came together and brought the Farmer’s Inn back to life after it closed by turning it into a co-op restaurant.

Two for the Road is a sweet little book that winds along the backroads of Jane and Michael Stern’s hearts, inscribing details of their mythic journey for all to share. It is definitely a great read, especially if you are planning on taking a roadtrip with family and friends this summer. I can think of nothing better to read in the backseat of a car, driving down the open road with the wind in your hair, than this memoir.