Creator of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and author of Food Americana, David Page is a long-time journalist (2 decades, foreign and domestic, with ABC News and NBC News) who transitioned to food television, and then books.

He’s gone all around the country capturing the stories behind the people and places in the foods and now, he compiled all that into a book called Food Americana. 

The Americanization of the Food

David says that since America is a country of immigrants, pretty much everything eaten here has come from someplace else. Even something as supposedly red-blooded American as a hamburger came from Hamburg, Germany. So there is pretty much nothing that just sprang up as American food. Another example could be lobster, which is indigenous to North America, when the explorers and settlers got here, and they first saw lobster that did not look like dinner, they had to learn what to do with lobster from the Native Americans who had been eating it for quite some time along with oysters.

What did David learn about food?

After having done Diners, David had the fervent belief that there are some remarkable people throughout the country who put their heart and soul into homemaking real food. David says that behind good food is people who really care about making good food. To succeed in the hospitality industry, David says, you have to have been born wanting to please people. Because the chances are they’re not gonna get rich.  And the concept of peeling a bushel of potatoes every day to make your fries fresh isn't going to seem like a lot of fun unless you really care that you make good fries, which David added, requires cooking them twice. 

About his investigative reporter and journalist background

David that getting the facts right is the absolute most for his work. “Factual doesn’t mean dry,” he says. His biggest standard is to avoid getting the facts wrong and he claims that in food writing that can be very tough because there are legends that are now fact, such as the allegation that a very, very good hamburger restaurant New Haven, Louise lunch made the first hamburger and there's no proof the Louise lunch made the first hamburger.

His show pitch 

When David left the world of network TV and opened his own production company, he started proposing shows for various networks with no success. He started as a subcontractor and found that he had to work his way up to be a contractor himself so he started pitching to the networks himself. He said he was remarkably unsuccessful. Finally, he started pitching to The Food Network, where he talked to an executive. It was a late Thursday or Friday afternoon when after rejecting most of his pitches, the executive asked “Haven you got anything else about diners?” and he said that he was currently developing Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. 

That one caught her attention. She asked him to have something sent to her desk on Monday. The only problem? David had just come up with the name out of nowhere in the phone, he had no show in development! He spent the weekend making phone calls, wrote the pitch for Monday, and was asked to do a one-hour special called Diners, drive-ins, and dives. And this eventually became a series. A rather lucky turn of events for David! 

Book vs. Show 

For David, some of the key differences between a book and a show lie in how the elements for storytelling are presented. For example, in a show, you are creating an experience where the audience feels as if they’re hanging with someone they enjoy hanging out with. For his show, his host was a naturally talented TV performed who got into the rhythm of things really fast. Other aspects of audiovisual storytelling include immersing the audience in the experience, making them hear the sizzle as the burger hits the grill.

This is all different when you’re writing of course, when it comes to nonfictional writing you have to find a way to tell the story from another human being’s point of view. So the challenge is not having pictures and being able to describe everything in an engaging, non-repetitive way. In writing, you have to carefully use the right words to make food appealing, and most importantly: you have to tell the right stories. 

If anything, David is a great example of how perseverance and passion for what you do can and will take you very far in life. It was his determination to succeed that drove him to the place he is today, and most surely will lead him even farther in life. 

Welcome back everyone. I'm Mark Stinson. And you've come to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. And this is the podcast where we go all around the world, talking to creative artists of all kinds, thinking about how they create their ideas, how they organize those ideas. And most of all, how they gain the connections and the confidence to launch their work out into the world. And we're just so fortunate today to have as our guests, one of those people who has created in many media, and I'd like to welcome in David Page, David, welcome to the program. Thanks

For having me Mark. Good to be here.

Yeah. Well, David, if you've heard this song and pretend I'm playing now the theme song of the TV show, then you know, the work of David Page, he is a creator of diners drive-ins and dives, and he's gone all around the country and his host, Guy has gone all around the country, checking out the food, but now he's captured some of those travels in a brand new book called food Americana. And it's the stories behind the people and places and the foods that, and David it's. It's great stories page after page.

Thank you very much. It's a subject that is dear to my heart.

Yeah. And in terms of our, the, you know, when we think about the creative process, you know, how did you begin to patch these stories together, town by town by way, by, by way?

Well, when I did diners which I did the, I created did the first 11 seasons of it was a question of very clearly looking for different geography and some of the detail behind making a TV show, everything is dictated by the budget and the final analysis. So one of the things we used to have to do was look for locations that would allow us to cross borders and hence do segments from multiple places. While on one trip in writing the book, it was much more about finding representative examples of particular genres of American cuisine. And in some cases, less than a particular location, it was looking for something that wasn't a particular location. In other words, my premise of the book is that there are foods which came from someplace else that are now eaten. So consistently all across the country, by almost all of us, that that's an American cuisine put together.

Hence, I went looking in many cases for examples of those foods where you might not expect them. In other words, if you're going to write about pizza, of course, you're going to write about New York. You'll probably write about San Francisco, maybe Philadelphia, Chicago, but then I had to go looking for an example of pizza. That was excellent representative of the growth of the food across the country representative of the fact that it's becoming grained in a particular part of the country. So I ended up saying to myself, let's look for good pizza, not on each coast and not in Chicago. And I ended up choosing a place called Borden Aros in Des Moines, Iowa. When, when you say de Moines, Iowa, people don't say pizza, but board Aros is now the second generation of the board. Denaro family making tremendous pizza pretty much in the center of the country about as far away as you can get from any port of immigration. So, so that was, that was much of the search. Now, obviously there are certain things that are going to take you to certain places. If you're going to write about Nashville, hot chicken, you're going to write about Nashville. If you're going to write about chicken wings, which I chose to do, obviously that story starts in Buffalo. What it goes to many, many other places. The argument made by the folks who first started Hooters is that they nationalized chicken wings, that's

Their claim. And they have A lot,ua lot riding on their side. What that it happened after they heard about a place selling chicken wings out of an old gas station in the,uFort Lauderdale area. They, they were in the Sarasota Clearwater area. So as they described the adventure, they, they threw some Smirnoff into the back of a van and they all jumped in and went out and searched your chicken wings and then said, you know, we got to put these in our new restaurant and it went from there.

And I love the, you know, as you talk about the Americanization of what we think of, you know, international cuisine, but I mean, you write about bagels. You write about, you know, spaghetti and meatballs of all things. I mean, all of these things that we claim are good, old fashioned American foods, but really started somewhere else. Didn't They?

Well, everything, look, we're a country of immigrants not to get into the politicization of this, but at a time when immigration is a hot button, political flashpoint, pretty much everything we eat came from someplace else, even something as supposedly red blooded American as a hamburger came from Humberg Germany. So there is pretty much nothing that just sprang up as an American food, even for example, lobster, which is indigenous to north America, when the explorers and settlers got here and they first saw lobster that did not look dinner, they had to learn what to do with lobster from the native Americans who had been eating it for quite some time, along with oysters.

Well, and I love the subtitle, the remarkable people, you know, and their stories behind America's favorite dishes. What did you learn about the people and the food?

Well, I came to this after having done diners with a fervent belief, that there were some remarkable people throughout the country who put their heart and soul into homemaking, real food. And when I drive into town after town, across the country, and, and it's like a ganglit of chain restaurants, and they're all the same and any relatively small American city has that same ugly entryway. I always think to myself, that's a lot of home cooking that was done away with as, as Americans, more and more turned to chains and bizarrely chains that are pretending to be their hometown place. The, the key to me, and I certainly emphasized it in the book behind good food is people who really give a about making good food to succeed in, in the hospitality industry. You have to have been born wanting to please people because the chances are you're not going to get rich. And the concept of peeling, a bushel of potatoes every day to make your fries fresh. Isn't going to seem like a lot of fun unless you really care that you make good fries, which requires for one thing, cooking them twice. So food made well made. Interestingly tends to be made by interesting people and as much as possible, I wanted to tell the stories of, of these kinds of food, of the restaurants that serve them through the people that run those restaurants or cooking those restaurants.

And some of it, I mean, I, your, your background is as a investigative reporter and a journalist is that a mindset that you brought to this book to try to tell the story in a very factual way? And in addition to bringing in some of this passion and emotion?

Absolutely. But factual doesn't mean dry factual just means tell the truth, whatever genre of journalism I'm working in my standard is don't make a mistake. Please don't make a mistake. Nothing scares me more than the possibility of getting a fact wrong. And in, in food writing that can be very, tough, because there are legends that are now fact such as the allegation, that a very, very good hamburger restaurant in new Haven, Louie's lunch made the first hamburger. There is no proorf to Louise lunch, made the first hamburger. And again, not to denigrate them in any way. They certainly made hamburgers a very long time ago, although they make them on white toast, which means some purists claim they're not hamburgers. And then unless it's on a bun, it isn't a harmburger the bottom line is this I referred to Louise lunch as forwarding the eventually unprovable claim that they made the first burger. It's very, very important to try to separate the fact from the fiction and all these things for example, was chop Sui an American dish, or was it an Americanized version of a Chinese dish? There are raging arguments on both sides, sides of that. There's one argument that says it was entirely created to feed Americans. Cause it sounded Chinese and it was something palatable to us. There's another school.

Okay. The name is a bastardization of a Cantonese phrase that meant odds and ends or bits and pieces. And that back-end Canton, there was a dish similar to this by that name that used as its protein, awful parts of an animal that many Americans won't eat. I researched it as well as I, as I could. And I've come to the conclusion that in fact, the dish existed in China, again, not, not the way we ate it or eat it to this day, but the, yeah, it was an Americanization of a Chinese dish. And again, there's no such thing as a Chinese dish because China is regional. It was an Americanization of a Cantonese dish.

Yes. Understood. Well, as long as we're on Asian cuisine, there's a great story in the book about a sushi and a gas station, sushi of all things.

Yeah. There's a gas station across from tinker air force base, outside Oklahoma city, that it has a full fledged sushi bar in it. I mean a real sushi bar, not prepackaged sushi and prepackaged sushi is not the bad thing that people necessarily think it is. But you walk into this gas station across mobile Walmart, and there's, there's a guy behind the counter slicing up fresh sushi now again, because our American cuisine takes other countries' foods and, and does to them what we want to either fit American palettes or reduce a fear factor in the case of raw fish. This place makes great traditional sushi, but their specialty is deep fried rolls where the whole thing goes into the fire and, and having gone to school in Oklahoma, I can say we, we like our fried food out there.

Yeah, absolutely. I spent some young years in Oklahoma as well. We liked it deep fried for sure. So David thinking about the book, it's a, it's a real ramp across the country, you know, and almost the stories of food and clearly the TV show is that, I mean, there's a, there's a pace, there's a speed. There's a pulse to the stories in these travels and maybe that's part of the passion, but what, what do you think is sort of the core fun of these food and diner stories?

Well, the book is different from the show, the show. And again, I haven't done the show for a number of years, but the basis of any successful television show much more than the content is the concept of voyeurism creating an experience in which the audience member feels as if he or she is hanging out with someone they want to hang out with, which means that obviously nothing is more important than finding the right host. Now let me be clear. I didn't find Guy. They gave them to me. I had no idea who he was. And when I went online and looked at him, what I saw was a man child in shorts, flip-flops and hair that looked like he had just had his head in a blender. And I thought to myself, I'm screwed. I, when I started working,

How long has this contract?

Yeah really. When I, as soon as I started working with him, I realized that while he was green and had a lot to learn A, he sucked it up quickly. And B he's the most naturally talented TV performer I've ever worked with. And I've been in this business literally 40 plus years. So that's the center of a TV show. Now the other technical elements of making a show, I could bore you to death with why we edited the way we edited. The fact that what people don't realize in a show like this is that sound is in some respects, more important than pictures, because if you want to immerse someone in experience, they have to, they have to hear the sizzle. As the burger hits the grill, we literally spent 23 hours, audio sweetening every half hour episode. Now it's different when, when you turn this into the written word, because writing for TV is about being invisible, using your words only to propel the audience, to and through various audio visual experiences, writing for a book.

Obviously you have neither that limitation nor that crutch. And in that case as with all non-fiction writing, or I guess, fiction writing as well, you have to find a way to tell the story through the, the view of another human being. Because like TV hanging with people you care about shared experience is resonates with us. So the challenge in writing about it, as opposed to having pictures is a adequately described. I mean, how many times can you say it was glistening? You have to be very careful in, in how you use your words to make food appealing and more important than anything else. You've got to get the right stories to tell. I mean, the story of the bagel when I was allowed to have free reign, pretty much at Russ and daughters, appetizing store on Laurie's side of New York, for anyone who's not of my tribe, an appetizing store is a place that sells, smoked fish bagels, things like that.

Russ and daughters is more than a hundred years old. It's legendary. And they, they, they allowed me behind the counter to, to try to slice locks, which is impossible to do. But, but again, what I found there was I, I met a guy named Bob Bozak, standing in line, waiting for Whitefish. And Bob Bozak told me his life story. And he was a heavyweight boxer. Who's really proud of the fact that even though Larry Holmes beat him, he couldn't knock him out. He took a beating, but, and he pulled a picture out of his wallet showing me him with Larry Holmes and that segwayed into a story about him hanging out with the old wise guys who ran boxing in the old days, many of whom were Jewish gangsters and the experience of going to one of these guys apartments and sitting around the bed and the big shot would be in the bed.

And they'd bring in plates of stuff from Russ and daughters. And they'd be eating Whitefish and talking about boxing. That's, that's how you tell a food story because let's face it more than anything else. Food is a social lubricant. Food brings us together. The worst thing, not the worst thing. I mean, there's been a tragic loss of life in jobs, but for me, what I have missed so much in the past year plus of COVID is the ability to say to friends, Hey, let's go grab a meal. I mean, three days ago now that were vaccinated. And a particular couple that we're friendly with is vaccinated. We went to their house without masks. We hugged, we had appetizers and a special bottle of wine that he'd been saving. And then the bottle I bought to compete with it. And then he made cut Shaw pet bay that, that wonderful Roman pasta with cheese and pepper. It was an extraordinary when I was a kid, I was a basic gaming or at a friend's house, but it's been a year plus since we've been able to do that. And that's so much of what food's about. Yeah. Now that's memorable. And then, and then my wife incredibly, she's an incredibly erudite individual, extremely well-educated a lawyer now, a realtor. She never had Kokua Pepe before. So she had me make it the next night, two nights in a row who does that? It's fantastic. It can be tough to make.

I love that story. Well, and, and David, I wanted to sort of roll the tape back to the pitch. You know, you had this idea for a show and then years later, an idea for the book. And I had a chance, a couple of episodes ago to interview David Knoll, who created chopped on the food network. And he was talking about these show pitches. And so I couldn't help, but wonder what was, what was the pitch? You know, you're in the conference room

The picture was an accident and it was in no conference room. Here's what happened when I left the world of network television and opened my own production company. That's a euphemism for, I now have no income. So after getting nowhere proposing shows to various networks, I called Al Roker. Now Al who since moved on to the weekday today, show actually worked for me. When I ran the weekend show, he also had a production company on the side. I called up, I said, Al am broke, you got any work. And, and he said, yeah, I'm doing stuff for the food network. You want to do some of that? So I said, sure. So I did some segments for his show rogue were on the road. And then he started subcontracting hours to me, one of them being an hour on the history of diners. I had to move on and try to pitch the network myself at some point because you, you don't, it's better to be the contractor than the subcontractor. So I started pitching the food network and I was remarkably incredibly unsuccessful. There was a an executive there who was kind enough to take my calls and who would say no

Went on for at least months, probably more than a year. Anyway, I'm on the phone, living in Minnesota at the time. That's a long story on a horse farm which was nice. And so ended up I'm in my basement office, it's lateon a Thursday or a Friday afternoon, almost evening. And I'm on the phone pitching, pitching, pitching, pitching, pitching. And she's saying, no, no, no, no, no. Finally she says, havent you got, anything else about diners? And I, oh yeah, I've been developing this show called diners drive-ins and dives. And she said, well, that sounds interesting. Again, this was the Thursday or Friday. She said, have something on my desk Monday. We have a development meeting Tuesday. Okay, great. Got off the phone. The only problem with this turn of events was I had not been developing a show called diners drive-ins and dives. I had invented the name on the spot and pulled it either out of thin air or out of a body part, depending upon how scatological you are. I spent the weekend making phone calls, remember them before everything was done, electronically making phone calls around the country. I wrote up a pitch sent her, the pitch on Monday and shortly thereafter, they said they asked me to do a one hour special call diners drive-ins and dives, which eventually morphed into the series. So I'd rather be lucky than good.

Well, that's a lesson for all of us when somebody says, have it on my desk, you figure it out. That's right. Well then fast forward to the book. Maybe that was as lucky, but I'm sure there was a story behind that where you said, Hey, now I'm going to put together a book. And I got to pitch that too

After diners, I moved on, I did another series on craft beer, which I syndicated because I had clearly no desire to make any money. After that I did development work for an online streaming venture. And for a long, long time as many TV producers do, had been harboring the desire to write a book. It's a different kind of storytelling. I change careers every few years, you know, one minute you're an investigative reporter and then you're a foreign reporter. Then you're a food. So it was not unusual for me to be itching, to do something else. And after years of the concept, just stating in the back of my mind, I said to myself, let's sit down and do it. What I did not realize when I made the decision was that I had picked the most complicated kind of book to research. In other words, I've got 12 or 13 different foods or food ways in this book.

Each one of them could have been a book of its own. And the amount of research that I had to do for the chapter was nearly as much as I would have done for a book. So working at a pretty fast pace, it took me two years to write the book. It also as a first-time author and not a celebrity it ain't easy to find a publisher. I was able to obtain a well-connected agent through a relatively famous food personality than I know what she was not. This was not at the top of her to-do list. And after a year, I'm writing away, secure the knowledge I'm going to sell this book somehow about a year, hell almost two years. Anyway, she sent me an email saying she can't sell this thing. So I started making some phone calls and asked a fellow who I had interviewed for the book who had a book of his own if he had any recommendations for agents. And he said to me, no, I actually did, did my deal directly with the publisher. I can send you on to them. And he sent me on to the one of the hottest publishers in the business mango publishing. They're the, in two of the last few years, they've been the fastest growing independent publisher in the country. I sent a fellow there an email, and like two weeks later I had a contract. So I think the lesson is don't give up.

That's terrific. Well, listeners, my guest is David Page is the author of a new book, just out food Americana, the remarkable people in the incredible stories behind America's favorite dishes. And he knows of what he speaks from his creation of diners drive-ins and dives. So David, this idea of not giving up and this persistence now speak to our listeners, you know, who are working on a project like this, it's a seed of an idea, or it's something they have been working along for a couple of years. Where do you keep the persistence and passion? What, what keeps the drive going for you?

You have to believe in what you're doing. If you're just, if your goal is just to write a book, you're not going to make it work. If your goal is to tell stories about what you care deeply, then you gotta stick with it. Look, Ted Williams was the greatest hitter of modern times and the best he ever did was get a hit four times out of 10. So I think one of the things I don't want to sound generationally classes here, but I fear that we are not teaching young people to expect to fail and then keep going. The number of television shows I have pitched over the course of my career is insane, but I kept at it when I was an investigative reporter. The number of phone calls you make to get nowhere I remember years ago when I was an investigator producer, working for Brian Ross, who at the time was the chief investigative correspondent at ABC news.

We were hearing about a real uptick in this thing called meth. And this was early on. And I said, let me find out what I can about meth I need. And again, it was going to be a magazine story for TV. So I needed a central character, but it's TV. You also need video and it's investigative television. So it better be sexy video. And I spent weeks calling and calling people all over the country completely striking out until quite by accident. Some guy cold called at a police department somewhere said to me, you know, there's a cop in west valley city, Utah. Who's been really involved in undercover stuff about meth. And he gave me the guy's name and I called him up and I explained who I was. And I said, you know what? I'd really like to find a way to get involved in taping.

Some kind of undercover activity involving meth. When he said that he didn't know me from Adam, he should, well, you know, I've been, I've been videotaping my stings for the past five years. And I said, well, could I have, is there any way I could get access to that? He said, sure. I've got them all in a box. Come on out here. I got on the next plane and I flew to Utah and I went to with production house and I started dubbing this tape. He was a, he was the best undercover I'd ever met him, undercover buying meth, making meth arresting guy. It was an unbelievable story. And it only happened because you can't be afraid that people will say no to you. I mean, I have a lovely sentence or two in this book, in the chapter about bagels and lox. I have Mel Brooks reminiscing about eating locks as a child. How did I get that? I had the chutzpah, which, you know, the Jewish word chutzpah by means you kill your mother and father then for yourself on the mercy of the court, because you are an orphan. I had,

I did not know...

That's traditional definition. I had the chutzpah to go search for for his production company and send an email to a guy asking if Mr. Brooks would have any interest in discussion the subject. And I got an email back saying, Hey, I'd like to, so I had a phone call with Mel Brooks. The point is, you got to ask if, if you don't ask, nothing's going to happen.

Yes, No, it's so true. Well, this has been fantastic. Now I know the book is just out, but you're making me wonder as you continue to reinvent it, find new outlets. What's next for you, David?

I'm already at work on the next book.

Ok I figured.

It's, it's sort of a sequel sort of not. And at the same time, I'm also working with a co-author on a cookbook.

Ah, that'll be fun.

She's the cook. I'll do the writing. It's it's it'll work out fine.

There you go. inspired for many of these travels and visits.

Yeah, absolutely.

Super well. That's going to be a lot of fun. Well, and maybe maybe you want to do a podcast on this. Maybe we should talk about that.

Your back is I got something else to talk about. How's that

Coming back? That's right. Well, listeners, my guest has been David Page author of a great book, food Americana, former creative, diners drive-ins and dives, and always cooking up new and creative angles. And we can't wait to hear what is ahead for David. Appreciate you coming on the show. David.

Mark. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. And we'll see, along the road somewhere, I'm sure at the next roadside there you go. And listeners come back again for the next episode, we'll continue our around-the-world travels today. It took us to long island and the Jersey shore. And, but we'll continue traveling around the world to talk to authors and songwriters and creatives in all fields about how they are inspired with their thinking, how they organize their ideas, and how they gain the confidence and the connections to launch their work out into the world. So until next time, I'm Mark Stinson and we've been unlocking your world of creativity. See you next time.