America's favorite baker, Nancy Baggett, has been on a roadtrip around the country. Now she's back, with something for everydessert lover: the best pies, cakes, puddings, crisps, cookies, icecreams, and candies in the land. Many of her discoveries werelocally famous family secretsuntil now. They include a memorablysimple blueberry buckle from a Vermont bed-and-breakfast; a coconutchiffon cake from an island off the coast of Virginia that hasbecome a "destination dessert"; a never-before-revealed recipe forchocolate-dipped caramel candies, the fund-raising specialty of thewomen of an Episcopal church in New Mexico; and a sublime peachcobbler from a cook in the Ozarks. Baggett has tested and retestedevery recipe in her home kitchen to ensure that all cooks get thesame results. She has even included a chapter on easy gifts to makewith children, from "bars in a jar" (a homemade brownie mix) tofancifully decorated graham-cracker holiday cottages. Every recipein this lavishly photographed book comes with an
The extremes of American eating--our equal urges to stuff and tostarve ourselves--are easy to blame on the excesses of modernliving. But Frederick Kaufman followed the winding road of theAmerican intestine back to that cold morning when the firstfamished Pilgrim clambered off the Mayflower, and he discovered thealarming truth: We've been this way all along. With outraged witand an incredible range of sources that includes everything fromCotton Mather's diary to interviews with Amish black-marketraw-milk dealers, Kaufman offers a highly selective,take-no-prisoners tour of American history by way of the Americanstomach. Travel with him as he tracks down our earliest foodies;discovers the secret history of Puritan purges; introduces dietgurus of the nineteenth century such as William Alcott, whobelieved that "Nothing ought to be mashed before it is eaten";traces extreme feeders from Paul Bunyan to eating-contest champDale Boone (descended from Daniel, of course); and investigates ourblithe efforts to re-create
