Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road by T. Lindsay Baker (review)

Reviewed by: Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road by T. Lindsay Baker Peter B. Dedek Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road. By T. Lindsay Baker. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2022. Pp. 409. Notes, indexes, illustrations, recipes.) Readers may know author T. Lindsay Baker from his several books on the material culture of Texas. Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road, finds him exploring territory well beyond the Lone Star State. In its introduction, Eating Up Route 66 provides a brief description of the development of twentieth-century American highways and Route 66 and gives a cursory history of American roadside food from the 1920s to the 1950s. What follows are commentaries on each state Route 66 passed through (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California) and an extensive collection of detailed histories and descriptions of individual historic restaurants, cafes, fast food joints, and the like that existed along the entire route during its period as an official U.S. highway from 1926 to 1985 (Route 66 was gradually replaced by interstate highways from the 1960s to the 1980s). The book is arranged geographically from east to west, from Chicago to Los Angeles, and includes a number of recipes from historic Route 66 eateries. Although the author clearly did a tremendous amount of research to write this book, it offers limited insights. The histories of American roadside food and Route 66 in the introduction are too abbreviated, and the many descriptions of individual eateries, while interesting, do not come together to support any overall focus or themes. For these reasons, it is difficult to understand the book's intended audience. Is it a history of foodways? The title indicates a focus on the history of food served on Route 66, however, the book tells the reader too little about American twentieth-century food and provides no historical argument or theoretical framework. There is a rich academic body of literature concerning the history of food and foodways, which the author appears not have consulted in depth. Is it a history of Route 66? It is not clear why the author chose Route 66 to begin with and did not just write a history about the food served on all major U.S. highways. We are never told whether the food on Route 66 was significantly different than the food found on other long distance U.S. highways such as U.S. 30, U.S. 40 or U.S. 90 during the same period. [End Page 229] Route 66 went through areas with distinct regional cuisines, but so did the other highways. Baker tells us that the fast-food chain Steak 'n Shake started on Route 66, but this is one of very few examples of a business or type of food cited in the book as being particularly linked to U.S. 66. Is it a guidebook of Route 66? The book is arranged like a guidebook; however, it does not include the directions required to function as one, and many of the landmarks described within it no longer exist. There is a tendency to arrange books about Route 66 geographically, almost always from east to west, but there was no clear reason to order this particular book in this way. The regions through which Route 66 passed (such as the Midwest, Upper South, Great Plains, and Southwest) have different traditional cuisines. If each of these regions had been featured as a section of the book with explanations of how road food on Route 66 was influenced (or not influenced) by the traditional foodways of that region, the geographical ordering would make more sense. Eating Up Route 66 will interest readers who want the histories of individual eateries along the highway and to know some of the recipes of specific dishes they served. Unfortunately for most readers, however, the text does not provide enough context about the history of American roadside cuisine or enough information about the history of Route 66 to offer a good understanding of why and how the food along this particular historic highway was significant. Peter B. Dedek Texas State University Copyright © 2022...