Eater’s newest cookbook, Eaterland: Recipes and Stories From Across the United States, is now available for preorder. With a focus on the iconic regional dishes that define American cuisine, the cookbook is chock-full of recipes, observations from chefs, and essays about unique local ingredients and traditions. At Eater, we’ve found ourselves repeatedly drawn to hyper-regional dishes — from Texas’s beloved Frito pie to the french fry-topped Pittsburgh salad. These dishes, beloved to those in-the-know, and the local chefs who champion them, usually find their way onto the maps and guides we’re known for. But devouring a bowl of Hawaiian loco moco as exceptional as the one from Koko Head Cafe in Honolulu (page 264) while living in the Northeast isn’t exactly easy. With Eaterland, readers can recreate those flavors right at home. The book is organized geographically, with eight chapters covering different regions of the United States, including Alaska, Hawai‘i, and Puerto Rico, each written by an experienced local food writer well-versed in the nuances of their area of the country. It includes quotes and stories from local chefs like New York’s Kwame Onwuachi and Texas’s Dean Fearing, sharing details about what makes their hometowns special. Every chapter features recipes for dishes crucial to the region’s history — many from small restaurants integral to the local community. In essays and interviews, Eater explores the evolution of these microcuisines, from the Indigenous roots of Southwestern fare to the Korean, Mexican, and Filipino touches that play a role in Californian and Pacific…
