From sea to shining sea, America loves to eat. This book takes readers on a journey through America’s sometimes-wacky digestive system via its weirdest diners, restaurants, and kitchens. Readers will love diving in to the culinary interests of America’s people, from strange meats like squirrel and possum to wild fruit and vegetable mixes like Jell-O salad. High-interest subject matter and amazingly odd photographs give readers a look at all the weird things people deep-fry at county fairs and the crazy concoctions different parts of the nation call “home cooking.”

This entertaining and informative encyclopedia examines American regional foods, using cuisine as an engaging lens through which readers can deepen their study of American geography in addition to their understanding of America's collective cultures. Many of the foods we eat every day are unique to the regions of the United States in which we live. New Englanders enjoy coffee milk and whoopie pies, while Mid-Westerners indulge in deep dish pizza and Cincinnati chili. Some dishes popular in one region may even be unheard of in another region. This fascinating encyclopedia examines over 100 foods that are unique to the United States as well as dishes found only in specific American regions and individual states. Written by an established food scholar, We Eat What? A Cultural Encyclopedia of Bizarre and Strange Foods in the United States covers unusual regional foods and dishes such as hoppin' Johns, hush puppies, shoofly pie, and turducken. Readers will get the inside scoop on each food's origins and history, details on how each food is prepared and eaten, and insights into why and how each food is celebrated in American culture. In addition, readers can follow the recipes in the book's recipe appendix to test out some of the dishes for themselves. Appropriate for lay readers as well as high school students and undergraduates, this work is engagingly written and can be used to learn more about United States geography.

Discover all kinds of unusual foods from around the world.

The law of the land is not always uniform, and this wacky book is proof. Intrigued readers dive into the law books of America’s cities and towns, passing by all the boring stuff and getting down to the just plain weird. Forget jaywalking and other everyday crimes—in West Virginia it’s illegal to use a ferret for hunting! Incredibly engaging text and wild photographs help make sure readers won’t play bingo for too long in North Carolina and stay on the right side of the law when collecting seaweed in New Hampshire.

Leisure time is for people do anything they want, but sometimes their interests are really freaky. While some people like to read books and others play board games with their families, many hobbies are a bit stranger. This wild book looks at the collections Americans treasure and the games they love—even if the collection is of their own fingernails and the game is bug fighting! Engaging subject matter and incredible photos show Americans relaxing in the oddest ways imaginable, delighting even the most reluctant of readers.

America isn’t old when compared to other countries, but it has its fair share of odd myths and legends. From the myths of Pecos Bill to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, our history has quirks and stories spanning all 50 states in the union. Readers explore the dark depths of storytelling in this exciting book filled with high-interest tales of American legends. Full-color photographs and freaky graphics help tell the tales that terrified—or just plain weirded out—American children for generations in certain cities or states.

Includes recipes for cooking horse meat, goats, dogs, cats, rats, rabbits, hares, squirrels, turtles, snakes, eels, sharks, frogs, and insects, among other unusual food sources.