United Burger States of America

The United States is many things to many people: to Peter Bibblecombe, it's food. America, he argues, is nothing less than a Great United Bumper McBurger: from the meat state of Connecticut (where the hamburger was invented in a New Haven parking lot) to the french fry state of Texas, where potato-headed politicians ask Is our children learning? For salt, there's Utah. For relish, there's always Bill Clinton's Arkansas. The author's ninth collection of travels finds him struggling to come to terms with a country that has Daylight Parking All Nite Long and a World Series that has nothing to do with the rest of the world.