Make TBO Your Home Page| Subscribe To The Paper| Advertise With Us| Contact Us| Login| Edit Profile| Register
Food
Email
Print
Road A La Mode
Tribune illustration
If you're on the road, be sure to check out these offbeat eateries.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: May 27, 2008
Three decades ago when authors Jane and Michael Stern set out to document great roadside places to eat, there was no Internet to go to for tips from diners. There was no Zagat guide to steer them toward restaurants. It was all word of mouth.
Thirty years later, their landmark 1978 book ''Roadfood'' (Broadway Books, $21.95) continues to be the standard by which highway and back-roads dining is judged. The seventh edition, published this year with an updated list of 700 barbecue joints, lobster shacks, diners and ice cream parlors, is a reminder that it was the Sterns who paved the way for the likes of Rachael Ray and her $40-a-day culinary travelogues.
''Roadfood'' led the Connecticut-based couple to write three dozen books and to turn their hobby into a column in Gourmet magazine and a regular spot on NPR's ''The Splendid Table.'' They spend more than a third of the year behind the wheel, also documenting their dining adventures on their Web site, Roadfood.com.
''Our work has gotten easier over the years because of the Web site,'' Michael Stern said recently during a phone interview. ''Now when we set out, we're armed with more tips and suggestions than we can get to. It's frustrating, actually.''
Some of the restaurants are chosen as assignments for the magazine, but the Sterns also ''allow for the possibility for getting lost.'' Talking to locals for suggestions on where to eat remains a big part of their research.
''Splendid Table'' host Lynne Rosetto Kaspar says that their work looks like a dream job.
''Jane and Michael do what many of us wish we could do, that is be explorers, find those local gems that are about that place and those people and their traditions,'' Kaspar says.
''Who doesn't want to be a smart, curious person with the time to follow the proverbial yellow brick, certain that your Emerald City is out there in the form of a great little chicken shack or barbecue joint?'' she says.
With gas prices soaring, the idea of culinary travel these days might seem extravagant. Stern thinks otherwise.
''The high prices of gas might actually encourage travelers to seek out 'Roadfood' restaurants, since nearly all of them are very inexpensive,'' he says.
They've heard from readers who said they use the book and Web site not only for long trips, but also for a weekend drive or an afternoon trip.
''Also, if airplane ticket prices and rental car prices keep going up, travelers may find that taking the family on a road trip actually is the less-expensive option,'' he says.
During the recent interview, he chatted about the allure of authenticity that road food provides.
Q: There's something about the essence of road food that makes it more appealing than eating it somewhere else. Last year I drove from Tampa to Savannah with my family, and we stopped at a roadside place where they sold boiled peanuts straight out of the boiler. They had homemade honey harvested from the orange groves surrounding the store. Obviously I had eaten boiled peanuts and honey before, but there's something about eating it there and then and under those circumstances that makes it a more special experience.
A: You're exactly right. Jane and I often make the point that there might be a terrific Cajun restaurant in Sioux City, Iowa, but that's not interesting to me.
When I go to Sioux City, Iowa, I want a restaurant I'm going to find only in Sioux City, Iowa. Similarly, when I'm in Cajun Louisiana, I want a Cajun restaurant. I don't want a New York deli. That's really the point. It's not just that the food is authentic. It's that everything is. The accents of the people you're sitting with, or the wait staff. The method of presentation. The whole experience of walking out, if you're in Louisiana, and smelling the swampland.
That's all part of the experience. Food in a vacuum is not really all that interesting.
Q: Right. Whenever anyone goes anywhere, the first question when they come back is, ''What did you eat?''
A: Exactly. I know there are some people who travel and eat at McDonald's or Applebee's or Ruth's Chris wherever they go. Why bother to travel if that's the case?
Q: There's a chapter in the book that includes a collection of Florida restaurants. There's one from Tampa that I was glad to read, from La Teresita.
A: La Teresita is a place we've been going to since, if not for the very first edition of ''Roadfood,'' then very shortly after. For us, it's just what we're looking for. It's a place where the locals eat local food.
Q: I loved the passage in the book. First, you nailed the food side of it; you got the Cuban sandwich, the signature dish. You deconstructed it, and then put it in context with the carne asada and the ropa vieja and the black beans.
Second, you nailed the experience of eating inside the place, which at La Teresita is special because of the counter, and there aren't many counters to eat at these days. And the idea of a family sitting at the counter, I remember those days when I was a kid when we would go to Woolworth's and we would be in a row. There's something unique about that.
A: We just love places with counters, if for no other reason than they really encourage communal conversation.
Q: Well, it's the original chef's table.
A: That's it. Exactly.
Q: Third, you accurately depicted the clientele, especially the old men who light up a stogie after a meal. That to me is almost a human terroir, for lack of a better term, that you won't find anyplace else.
A: That's the kind of stuff I remember. Of course I remember the food, but I remember the farmers at the Havana Cafe in North Dakota more than I remember what I ate at the Havana Cafe because they were such colorful people.
I remember they had a long conversation about winter wheat versus summer wheat and which makes better bread. It was way too complicated for me, but it was fascinating to hear people talk about what really mattered to them.
Q: And you're not going to hear that at La Teresita.
A: [laughs] That's true.
Keyword: Stew, to hear the rest of this Table Conversations podcast interview.
BITE OF THE BAY
Here's what Jane and Michael Stern had to say in their book ''Roadfood'' about a Tampa Bay culinary landmark:
La Teresita
3248 W. Columbus Drive
Tampa
(813) 879-4909
A Cuban sandwich is a beautiful thing: ham, roast pork and cheese, along with mustard, mayonnaise and pickles encased in elegant bread that is toasted to a crisp. There is no better place to eat one than Tampa, especially at the neighborhood cafe called La Teresita.
There are a few tables scattered about, but the choice seats (and swift service) are at the counters. Seats are arrayed along a sweeping serpentine surface where whole families line up on the rows of stools at dinnertime. Regulars come for breakfast of buttered Cuban bread and café con leche; lunch favorites include carne asada, ropa vieja, vaca frita and the best black beans and rice in town. Throughout the day, you'll see groups of happy gents gathering in the street after dining at La Teresita. Here they fire up big made-in-Tampa cigars and look like kings who have just enjoyed a royal feast.
Reporter Jeff Houck can be reached at (813) 259-7324 or jhouck@tampatrib.com.
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online ©2009 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. A Media General company. Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
