''Roadfood'' is a series of books by

Jane and Michael Stern Jane Grossman Stern and Michael Stern (both born 1946) are American writers who specialize in books about travel, food, and popular culture. They are best known for their '' Roadfood'' books, website, and magazine columns, in which they find roa ...

originally published in 1977. The term Roadfood was coined by the Sterns to describe the regional cuisine they discovered when they began driving around America in the early 1970s. Their focus was not on deluxe fare, but on everyday local food – barbecue, chili, fried chicken,

apple pie An apple pie is a fruit pie in which the principal filling ingredient is apples. The earliest printed recipe is from England. Apple pie is often served with whipped cream, ice cream ("apple pie à la mode"), or cheddar cheese. It is gene ...

– and the unpretentious restaurants that serve it:

diners A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a com ...

, small-town

cafe A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-caf ...

s, seaside shacks,

drive-ins A drive-in is a facility (such as a restaurant or movie theater) where one can drive in with an automobile for service. At a drive-in restaurant, for example, customers park their vehicles and are usually served by staff who walk or rollerskat ...

, and bake shops. The Sterns, who had no formal training in cuisine or journalism, met at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1968, married in 1970, and graduated in 1971, after which they left academia to explore the USA. At first, their focus was on popular culture in general, but after traveling around the country for a few years, they realized they had been keeping an informal diary of unknown and unique places to eat: inconspicuous restaurants that were, at the time, of no interest to the food-writing establishment. After three years of travel in a beat-up

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

, staying at seedy

motel A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionarie ...

s, and occasionally sleeping in the back seat of the car, they drafted the manuscript of ''Roadfood'', a guide to restaurants that were neither fast food nor gourmet dining, but were an expression of local foodways. ''Roadfood'' was a landmark, the first cross-country guide to regional American food. Since then, the Sterns have written ''Roadfood'' columns for

Gourmet magazine ''Gourmet'' magazine was a monthly publication of Condé Nast and the first U.S. magazine devoted to food and wine. The New York Times noted that "''Gourmet'' was to food what ''Vogue'' is to fashion." Founded by Earle R. MacAusland (1890–1980 ...

and

Saveur ''Saveur'' is an online gourmet, food, wine, and travel magazine that publishes essays about various world cuisines. The publication was co-founded by Dorothy Kalins, Michael Grossman, Christopher Hirsheimer, and Colman Andrews, who was also th ...

and report regularly about "road food" on public radio's "

The Splendid Table ''The Splendid Table'' is a weekly radio program about food hosted by Francis Lam. The program began in 1997 on Minnesota Public Radio, and was originally hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper until her retirement in 2017. It is produced and distribu ...

." They have won numerous

James Beard award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

s for their writing and have been inducted into the Who’s Who of American Food. The book ''Roadfood'' has been updated several times; the 10th edition was published in March 2017. Writing in the New York Times Book Review about ''Two for the Road'', the Sterns' memoir of their pursuit of "road food",

Nora Ephron Nora Ephron ( ; May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for her romantic comedy films and was nominated three times for the Writers Guild of America Award and the Academy Award for ...

commented, "Jane and Michael Stern write about ordinary food so simply and exuberantly that I couldn't help thinking, as I read this latest book of theirs (the 31st), that they deserved a room of their own in the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, right next to Julia Child's Cambridge kitchen." In the years since its first publication, ''Roadfood'' has inspired countless other writers, television personalities, and internet bloggers to pay attention to regional fare. In 2000, the Sterns partnered with Stephen Rushmore to create Roadfood.com, the first internet website to include photos with restaurant reviews. In 2015, ''Roadfood'' was acquired by Fexy Media of Seattle, Washington. After the sale, the Sterns remained in charge of editorial content of the website.

References

{{reflist Travel guide books Restaurant guides