Michael Stern

Michael Stern, co-creator of Roadfood.com – the first food website to feature photography – has written over 40 books about American food and popular culture, including New York Times best sellers Elvis World and The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste. Michael was born in Chicago. He was educated at Johns Hopkins, University of Michigan, Yale, and Columbia University. Before devoting his attention to writing, he produced and directed documentary films for WNBC-TV and the United States Information Agency. In 1992 Jane and Michael Stern were inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America for their pioneering work discovering regional food. Michael was an editor at Gourmet Magazine for 17 years. The monthly column he and Jane Stern wrote won three James Beard journalism awards. He was a contributing editor to Saveur Magazine from 2010 to 2015. From 1997 to 2017 the Sterns were regular weekly guests on the Public Radio show, The Splendid Table. In 2016 the Smithsonian Institution acquired the Jane & Michael Stern Roadfood collection for its permanent archives Michael currently lives in Aiken, South Carolina, where he rides horses and writes a weekly restaurant review for The Aiken Standard.