Editor’s Note: If the rising gorge of your regional pride will not prevent you from reading this… you will note that the author ‘expects to have his teeth knocked out by the return mail.'” This amusing and intentionally provocative pictorial map of the United States was designed to accompany an inflammatory article on America’s culinary landscape by Ted Shane for the July 1940 edition of Esquire. Writing from the perspective of an uncompromising New Yorker, Shane excoriates regional cuisines; with Hollywood as home to ‘Awful Food and Phooey Salads’, while apples and salmon apparently comprise the entire catalog of foodstuffs in the Pacific Northwest. While the map does not literally plot the topographic “depths” of bad cooking Shane describes, it offers a brilliant, stylized overview of the country’s food culture. The sheet is densely populated with vignettes and clever wordplay that poke fun at local staples, including “Feesh” in Florida, grits and more grits in the South, and heavy Midwestern fare. The map’s true significance lies in its illustrator: E. Simms Campbell. A trailblazing figure in American illustration, Campbell was the first African-American cartoonist to achieve national prominence, becoming a mainstay in Esquire (creating its mascot, Esky) and later contributing to The New Yorker and Playboy. His fluid, ‘sexy’ line work here perfectly captures the magazine’s ‘urban’ brand while subtly parodying the very provincialism the article attacks. Sources: Ohio State University Library; Society of Illustrators;
