Want to re-create the Iowa 80 Truckstop’s peach dumplings, or the zucchini seafood casserole from the Bobber in Booneville, Mo., in your kitchen at home? Now you can with “The All-American Truck Stop Cookbook: Good Eats From The Road,”

by Ken Beck, Jim Clark and Les Kerr.
The comb-bound cookbook from Rutledge Hill Press contains more than 250 favorite truckstop recipes and, says the publisher, “pays homage to the romance and true grit of trucking life,” including trivia and slang, nostalgic photos of early truckers and their rigs, and stories of the charitable work performed by truck drivers. Photos and history of top truckstops of today and days gone by focus on institutions such as the Iowa 80, the world’s largest truckstop, and the Coldfoot, inside the Arctic Circle.
Ken Beck is an editor for The Tennesseean in Nashville, Tenn., and a freelance writer. With co-author Jim Clark, another freelance writer, he has also written “Aunt Bee's Mayberry Cookbook,” “The All-American Cowboy Cookbook,” “Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook,” and others. Les Kerr is a jazz musician and freelance writer who writes frequently about the trucking industry for Tennessee Trucking News and other publications.
“I think it was simply a combination of nostalgia for the good old days when American families went on vacations on the open road, before there were interstates and fast-food restaurants,” Beck tells the Associated Press. “Thus, every town and every little store or filling station was as unique as the people who ran it. And then it was also the idea of tracking the history of truckstops and finding some of the most interesting.”
Entire chapters are devoted to chili (“Hot Rods in a Bowl”) and meat loaf (“The Mother Load.”) Some of the recipes are presented in their original, crowd-feeding size, while others have been cut down and adapted for a typical family meal.
The cover price is $14.99, and the cookbooks is available for a discount online at www.amazon.com or www.rutledgehillpress.com.