Product Details
Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run

Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run
By Alton Brown

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Product Description

He’s on the road again. This time, Alton Brown and his motorcycle-mounted crew are off on a thousand-mile, south-to-north journey that follows America’s first “superhighway”—the Mississippi. Starting at the great river’s delta on the Gulf of Mexico and ending up near its headwaters in Minnesota, Alton and buddies travel the heartland’s byways to scout out the very best of roadside food—and to get to know the people who spend their lives preparing and serving it.

A companion to the six-part Food Network series airing in fall 2007, Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run is a travel diary, photo journal, and, of course, cookbook. Alton’s itinerary includes big-city eateries and small-town chat ’n’ chews, as well as markets, inns, ice cream parlors, museums, barbecue joints—and even an alligator farm.

Louisiana-style Grilled Alligator Tail (served simply, with lemon and butter) is one of the book’s forty original road-food recipes. Others include Pecan-Coconut Pie from an Arkansan roadside restaurant; BBQ Pork Ribs in Mississippi that Brown eats over pancakes; Vegetable Borscht from St. Paul’s Russian Tea House; and Fried Catfish from a riverside burg in Illinois. When it comes to America’s foodways and folkways, there’s no better tour guide than Alton Brown.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #22546 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-04-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 208 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Alton Brown is the writer, director, and host of the Food Network show Good Eats, which won a 2007 Peabody Award, and is the resident food historian, scientist, and color commentator of the network’s Iron Chef America series. In 2004, his book I’m Just Here For the Food won the James Beard Award for Best Cookbook in the Reference category. A regular contributor to Bon Appétit and Men’s Journal magazines, Brown lives in the southern United States with his wife and daughter.

Jean-Claude Dhien was trained as a chef in Europe and now works as a photographer. He accompanied Alton Brown on his first Feasting on Asphalt series in 2006.





Customer Reviews

More engaging on TV3

Unlike Michael Palin, where the books that are companions to his television travels are little treasures that stand on their own, Alto Brown's FEASTING ON ASPHALT: THE RIVER RUN is a bit of a disappointment. Brown, a witty and intelligent host, writes in a style that mirrors his narrative; folksy and smart with many interesting comments. The problem is that they don't really add detail to the already comprehensive series. Padded with photos by fellow "feaster," Jean Claude Dhlen, which while cute, are not exactly artfully composed and recipes that are often approximations of "secret family recipes," a concept I find ridiculous.(What are people afraid will happen to them if the world knew the truth about their doughnuts, fried chicken etc.) FEASTING ON ASPHALT: THE RIVER RUN is a cute scrapbook of the series, but if you're a fan just get the DVD's.

Great Story, Great Recipes5
If you love Alton Brown you'll love this book. It is full of his insight, humor and wit. I watched Feasting on Asphalt and I enjoyed reading this book because it went more in-depth than the show did. I didn't find myself bored reading about things I had seen on the show, because I got to read it from Alton's perspective. Alton is a very adept story teller and I found myself absorbed in the book. Although I can't really classify any of the recipes as being particularly healthy I do love the recipes for Mulate's Homemade Bread Pudding and Nana Deane's Pecan Coconut Pie, among others.
If you are looking strictly for a recipe book than this is not your book, but if you are looking for a book that has great recipes in it and has stories that are entertaining that accompany the recipe, or you just like Alton Brown, than this is a great book.

Delish!5
Okay, I have to admit something. I've got a ridiculous crush on Alton Brown and his show "Good Eats" on the Food Network. That being said, there's clearly no way I can be completely unbiased when it comes to reviewing his book, but I'm not the kind of person to sit down and read a cookbook as though it were a novel regardless of how much I love the author.

Feasting on Asphalt is a compilation of AB's backroad journey up the Mississippi River (hence the subtitle, "The River Run"). I haven't watched the show, but the book is a pretty great reflection on the silliness and conversational style that Alton Brown usually employs in his "Good Eats" show, so I'm guessing the show is similar. The book itself reads like a scrapbook/travel diary, punctuated by funny little moments with the people he meets and the delish food they make that he samples. The recipes are either from the people themselves, or they're adaptations according to what Alton Brown thought the original dish had, and they're pretty much all good, greasy, crispy, fried Southern food (not a diet book, clearly).

One thing I've kind of had a problem with in his books and sometimes in his show is the implausibility of actually MAKING some of the dishes. But that's kind of something you see in any cookbook right? (What normal person who doesn't cook for a living is going have all these things on hand... like an actual vanilla bean?) So I forgive him.

Anyway, most cookbooks don't really give you a history or background on the food you eat, much less the ingredients you use to make it. Feasting on Asphalt has history, good food, and wit. What else can you ask for?