The Great American Recipe Cookbook Season 2 Edition: 100 Memorable Recipes to Celebrate the Diversity and Flavors of American Food

America is a nation of migrants, who bring their culture, their heritage, and yes, their food to their tables, and ours. Eventually their foods become American foods as we adapt the recipes to ingredients that are more readily available, and to accommodate the palettes we have acquired. This book is an outgrowth of a project that aims to explore contemporary cultural influences on American cuisine. The recipes are from the PBS series The Great American Recipe Season 2.

Nine contestants and four judges share some of their recipes that have been modified to embody cultural flavors in American cuisine. Most recipes take up a two-page spread, with a picture of the finished dish on one page. The recipes are arranged by eight different types (appetizers, soups, handhelds, chicken, meat, seafood, rice and pasta, and dessert), with nine to eighteen recipes in each section (for a total of one hundred recipes). The recipes do require some culinary experience, but are not challenging for most home chefs.

What makes this book unique is that the dishes are those that regularly grace family tables in America. They retain their cultural heritage while utilizing shared ingredients, thus reflecting contemporary Americans from their different backgrounds all weaving a tapestry of common American ideals.