BEACH READING

'The Food of a Younger Land'
By Mark Kurlansky (Riverhead Books, $27.95)

Award-winning food writer Mark Kurlansky discovered the files of "America Eats" in the Library of Congress by accident. The research had been abandoned by members of the Federal Writers Project, one of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs that provided work to thousands of unemployed writers during the Great Depression.

The project was conceived in 1939 by FWP administrator Katherine Kellock. She sent writers and researchers to every region of the country to document the richly varied food and eating traditions of prewar America. Even though a stack of copy nearly 2 feet high was generated, both the FWP and the project were disbanded following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The research Kurlansky found in the national archives is important because it provides a snapshot of 1940 America, a time, as the author explains, before the national highway system, chain restaurants and frozen food. The nation's food supply was seasonal, regional and traditional, which helped form and reflect the distinct character, attitudes and customs of those who ate it.

For example, there were possum-eating clubs in the South, Puget Sound salmon feasts in the Pacific Northwest, South Carolina barbecues and even traditional

ash cakes

in Arkansas, which are, as might be suspected, baked in the coals of a fireplace. In short, this magnificent collection reveals all of the curiosities, commonalities and communities of American food in prewar America.

The changes brought about by the war were profound. Kurlansky points out that in 1940, Mexican cooking in America was found only in the Southwest among the Chicanos who knew how to grind the corn.

To find a description of a 1930s Manhattan Automat, or find out what Texas chuck wagon cooking was like, or find a recipe for Indiana Persimmon pudding, there is no better source than this excellent book.