Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast to Coast in Search of Real American Cuisine

When Felicity Cloake announced that she was planning her dream cycle around the United States, not everyone shared her excitement. “You’ll die,” a Californian colleague told her matter of factly. “No one rides a bike round here.” Her mum agreed – “you can’t go on your own, you’ll be murdered.” Friends were horrified – “but… what will you eat?”

The country certainly boasts an outsized reputation around the world for fast food and faster living – everything is louder, brighter, bigger, if not always better – yet for all the cartoonish depictions of its culture on the big and small screen, Felicity was convinced that in reality, most Americans are just like the rest of us… despite a troubling national tendency to eat doughnuts for breakfast.

Her mission; to take a closer look at the iconic American dishes that have conquered the world – including those doughnuts – and the immigrant cultures behind them, to visit the landscapes and people behind foods that are so familiar many of us now don’t even recognise them as American, let alone American with a back story as rich complex as those of any other cuisine. Crispy tacos, fortune cookies and hot sauce; smoked salmon bagels and blueberry muffins – all these are, essentially, American creations, and Felicity was determined to visit them at the source, and prove that actually, American food is more than just big burgers and deep-fried butter… though of course, they too have something to say about the food culture of a country where it feels like every other commercial is pushing weight-loss drugs.

But this was to be no standard road she wanted to get out of the car, and off the freeways, with their strip malls and national chains – to see the States at a more human pace, through its small towns and rural roads, to tip her helmet to Amish buggies and take a seat at the counter in old-school diners, where the menu is half Greek, half grilled cheese, and the servers chat in Spanish as they refill your coffee. Along the way she discovers local specialties like crawfish stew and sauerkraut balls, Indian pudding and marionberry pie, meets the second and third generation immigrants playing around with the likes of mochi hush puppies and Bangladeshi burgers, surprises an awful lot of drivers, and gets slightly too close to the action at the Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island.

Spoiler she comes back in one, well-fed piece.

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