Martha's American Food

Many of these 200 recipes offer comfort. Home diva Stewart has divided her combination food-history and recipe book into five “geographies”—Northeast, South, Midwest, Southwest, and West. She then submits a sixth category, “all-American,” that includes, expectedly, hamburgers, hot crab dip, turkey, and tuna noodle casserole. Dishes, most accompanied by color photographs, range from those in strict adherence to traditional tastes, such as roast turkey, to contemporary variations attuned to seasonal ingredients and newly discovered combinations, such as, for one, fig pizza. Of all the pages, perhaps the most riveting are those without recipes, concerned with the backstories of particular U.S. foodstuffs and showcasing, in sidebars, particular ingredients. The introduction of mayonnaise, the grandfather of meatloaf, the origin of wild rice, and everything you wanted to know about apples are among the topics such pages discuss. --Barbara Jacobs