Joan Nathan's (bio here) book, 'The New American Cooking', won the James Beard regional award for food of the Americas last year.

She tasted her way from Alaska to Puerto Rico, hanging out with a chef at the Honolulu fish auction, gathering wild rice with Ojibwe Indians in Minnesota, eating Sunday dinner with a family of Cambodian farmers in Lowell, Mass., gleefully noting a Chinese restaurant serving stir-fried bison.

She even works Tom Hanks and Larry David into the book! Check it out.

Article, here, includes reprinted recipies.