Dame Jen Greenhalgh takes us through this month’s pick: From Peach Street to Lobster Lane by Felicity Cloake.
Our latest gathering at Anne Dolamore’s glorious book-filled home was a feast for both mind and palate, as we explored Felicity Cloake’s latest culinary adventure, *Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast to Coast in Search of Real American Cuisine*. Several of us—Jen, Helen, Cathy, Chantal, Hermione, and Debbie—gathered in person, while Francine, Jo, and Frankie joined us virtually for what turned out to be one of our most inspiring book club meetings yet.
So Felicity Cloake – you know, the Guardian food writer who’s normally testing all the recipes and coming up with the definitive version so you don’t have to – decided to cycle across the entire United States. Ten weeks, thousands of miles, all in search of proper American food. Mad as a box of frogs, but we absolutely loved her for it.
The book follows Felicity as she pedals from coast to coast, eating everything from crawfish stew to sauerkraut balls (yes, that’s apparently a thing), Memphis barbecue to Mission burritos. When she announced this bonkers plan, everyone told her she’d get squashed by a truck, but off she went anyway. Brave woman. But anyone who has followed her for a while knows this is classic Felicity.
What she discovered was far richer than the stereotypes suggest. A wildly varied place of warm hospitality, (though she did get chased by gun toting nut jobs a couple of times), local pride and unforgettable flavours, from crawfish stew to sauerkraut balls (who knew they were a thing), Memphis barbecue to Mission burritos, Italian beef to Tex-Mex gyoza, and more pie varieties than you can shake a stick at.
We started off with martinis (naturally) and dove straight in. Absolutely unanimous: we all adored this book. Not a single moan or grumble, which is practically unheard of for us lot! We did note that those of us who read on Kindle or listened to the audiobook did miss out on the maps and the truly beautiful end papers in the printed book, and we would have loved a digital version of those included in the Kindle version.
Our American Dames found some of her selections a bit perplexing, noting that they seemed “junk and fast food style heavy” and felt that fresher, farm-to-table options are more readily available than the book suggested. However, we all agreed that budget constraints, time pressures, and the realities of road travel would have influenced her choices. Most importantly, we universally admired Cloake’s courage and sheer chutzpah in undertaking such an epic adventure. The solo camping she did had us all in awe, we definitely wouldn’t have done that. She’s one brave lady. Some of us, namely Anne, Helen and Jen followed Felicity’s journey in pictures via her Instagram where she is very active and well known as mum to Wilf, a very feisty Cairn terrier. We recommended this to the other Dames who agreed they would absolutely go and look back and find some of the pictures of places and people mentioned.
There was quite a lot of pie chatter. They were a real feature of the book and we enjoyed discussing the difference in pie culture between the US and UK. Ours tend to the savoury whilst the array of sweet and fruit pies in America is mind boggling, we felt Felicity could have written an entire book just about the pies. In fact we said the book could have been three times the length, there was so much she could have explored and how on earth she chose what she did from the plethora of options available must have been really difficult. This led to an interesting discussion about how we would have felt if the tables were turned and an American author came and explored our food culture in the same way and how we would feel about that. Would we agree with all their choices? No. We most likely would not!
Finally it was agreed, Felicity scored a big fat zero on our Slap-o-meter. Our highly scientific system for measuring how much authors annoy us. Zero slaps for Felicity. We all felt we wanted to be her friend, though maybe not too close in case she made us cycle across Australia or something.
Now on to the most important part. What we ate. This book made us all want to cook, more than any other book we’ve read, so far. And boy, did we go to town:
Anne knocked up lobster rolls, cream cheese herb bagels, and salt beef bagels with proper pickles. Chantal made the most gorgeous apple pie – that pastry! Helen brought these absolutely sinful walnut blackberry brownies that were so gooey and decadent I nearly licked the plate (I had two).
Cathy went full-on ambitious and made the eggplant heroes that Felicity had at a friend’s house in the book. She even baked her own ciabatta! I had a go at the calas (those New Orleans rice fritter things) but added my own twist with fennel icing sugar because, well, why not? I used to make them regularly for the menu at a restaurant I worked at and I’d forgotten how good they really are.
Debbie made cajeta caramel, from her own goats’ milk, to go with my calas. Incredible. We all agreed she must offer this for sale immediately.
Hermione brought a cracking Californian Pinot Noir that went down a treat with everything. We all rolled home absolutely stuffed and very happy indeed.
What’s Next?
Cathy’s hosting next month and will let us know what we’re reading. After this culinary marathon, she’s got her work cut out picking something that’ll inspire us to cook again!
*That’s all for now! Next meeting at Cathy’s – date TBC. New faces always welcome, especially if you bring cake.
Get in touch with Dame Hermione Ireland if you would like to join in*