Imagine walking into a humid St. Louis café with no air-conditioning during the peak of summer and instead of reaching for the doorstop to facilitate a breeze, there's a raw chicken in its place. A terrifying experience for most — but another adventure for food critics Jane and Michael Stern.
"Michael and I have tried very hard over the years not to get poisoned," said Jane Stern, followed by a hard laugh.
"We have had such weird experiences," adds her husband Michael Stern. "These things really did happen — we have photographic evidence."
There was the time the pair stumbled into a whorehouse because they thought it was a café — shortly realizing that something was wrong.
"We were waiting for the food but only naked ladies kept coming out," recalled Michael Stern.
Or the time they were touring the eateries in North Carolina with their bulldog, Richard, and had to make an emergency visit to a veterinarian. One look at the dog and the doctor recommended the absurd.
"He looked at our dog and said 'The only thing you can do is remove the skeleton'," said Michael Stern.
Perhaps the recommendation would have seemed lighthearted had the Stern's not noticed the pile of bones in the veterinarian's back yard.
SUCH IS LIFE ON THE ROAD for this pair of traveling food critics. Both Yale graduates, the two released their first book in 1977, titled "Roadfood" a guidebook for eateries along the highways and byways of the country. With very little media attention being paid at the time to the "mom-and-pop" cafés and restaurants that Jane and Michael Stern came to enjoy, their book was a quick hit.
"We both got some fancy Ivy League degrees — we just wanted to get out and experience the country," said Michael Stern. "The fact is, what we quickly found is the best way to get a feel for a town is to sit in a café or a lobsterman's hangout."
Although an adventure, recommendations for where to eat in the beginning were hard to come by. Jane and Michael Stern charged themselves with the task of documenting the culinary culture of the road.
"In the beginning we were kind of flying blind — if there was a book, we would read it," said Michael Stern. "There just wasn't a lot of interest in it.
"I think Michael and I have always been contrarians," added Jane Stern. "When we were there [Yale], restaurants were always about the most expensive wine and food and we didn't have any money. We would go on the road and find the opposite."
For many, the idea of wasting money on an unfavorable meatloaf at the local greasy-spoon might be hard to swallow. Experts on sniffing out a good meal, the Sterns have developed a few techniques over the years.
"If we are in a small town, we pretend that Michael needs a haircut and go into a barbershop to pick their brains about where to eat," said Jane Smith.
"When we are on the road we probably eat 10 meals a day," she continues. "From 4 a.m. until 9 p.m. — 400 miles a day. It's very tiring and probably one-fifteenth of the restaurants we write about."
"Nobody's going to feel sorry for us," joked her husband.
NOW, WITH CLOSE to 30 books written, a monthly column in Gourmet Magazine and a popular user-involved Web site, www.roadfood.com, the couple have become an encyclopedic resource for food on the road. But more than that, the two have witnessed first hand how the landscape of eateries across the country has changed over the past 30 years.
"When we started, there was fast-food but no mid-level Outbacks and Applebees," said Jane Stern. "The landscape has changed for the worse in that there are more 'corporates.' Amazingly, we found the little places to be much more resilient. We thought we would be documenting a dying culture but they really have survived."
Along with documenting the flux of restaurants, the two have also become connoisseurs in the various regional food throughout the country — just don't try and have them pin-point their favorite.
"That's like asking someone who their favorite child is," said Michael Stern. "We usually say the South, but wherever we go, we always think 'let's move here'."
Name a city and, in turn, they can name a native food. But as most Washington D.C. natives know, some cities are harder to pinpoint than others.
"D.C and New York City are virtually impossibilities," agreed Connecticut residents Jane and Michael Stern. "They don't have a regional character because people come from all over," Jane Stern continued.
With some deliberation, Michael Stern was reminded of one D.C. foodstuff that is only found in the area — the "half smoke."
"Maybe D.C.'s soulfood is the closest to an indigenous cuisine," he added. "It's such a flexible culture there."
HAVING JUST RELEASED their latest book, "Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food," which is more-or-less a memoir of the past 30 years on the road, the two have begun giving more frequent guest lectures.
"We never had the time or inclination to do lectures until about five or six years ago," said Jane Stern. "We just found that we adored it and decided that we would do it once a month."
"It's 30 years of our experiences in one hour," she added.