Author Archives: SCA

Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South

Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South
By Emily Wallace
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019
Hardcover, 188 pages. $24.95

Reviewed by Ralph S. Wilcox

Emily Wallace’s book, Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South, is a delightful exploration of a wide variety of Southern institutions and phenomena related to the roadside. Liberally illustrated with Wallace’s own sketches, the book is an easy read, but chock full of interesting stories about many things Southern.

Described as “an illustrated glovebox essential,” Wallace notes that “There are hot dogs and hot sauces herein. But this is not a guide to singular Southern foods or where to find them at their very best. Rather, this is a handbook that examines some of the ways we’ve gotten where we’re going: the signs that bait, the burgers that sate, the maps that guide, and the mixtapes that score the ride. As they do on the road, chains appear in these pages … but there are also detours to spots out yonder and beelines to specific destinations—oftentimes a road trip’s reason for being.”