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American Morning

'Food & Wine' Devotes 12 Weeks to Compiling Food In America Poll

Aired July 10, 2002 - 08:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Americans are in an opinionated lot, especially when it comes to their food. Now we know what we like, we know what we don't like and we even know what celebrities we'd like to have dipped in chocolate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: What annoys you most at restaurants?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People answering their cell phones.

QUESTION: Which TV family would you most like to dine with?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Osbournes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the Huxtables, "The Cosby Show."

QUESTION: Pick one celebrity you could dunk in chocolate to have a little fun with. Who would it be?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Britney Spears.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Well, that's why the folks at "Food & Wine" magazine devoted 12 weeks to compiling a Food In America poll.

And here with us to talk about their findings is Dana Cowin. She is editor-in-chief of "Food & Wine" magazine.

Good to see you.

DANA COWIN, "FOOD & WINE": Good to see you.

HARRIS: This sounds like a lot of fun.

COWIN: It was so much fun to come up with these questions, you know, who would you want to cover in chocolate and leave by an ant hill? Do you have an idea about that? The readers of, and the users of this AOL "Food & Wine" poll did. Howard Stern the top of the list.

HARRIS: No kidding?

COWIN: Yes.

HARRIS: He might not be happy to hear that this morning.

Now, let's start off with -- but any other big surprises come up to -- or was it pretty much what you expected to find, or what?

COWIN: Well, we found that people cared a lot about money. Not a surprise. You know, they didn't want to, they wanted inexpensive wine. They didn't spend that much money when they went out on a date. We found out that kind of thing, which we were amused by, perhaps.

But most interesting, they were really pro-America.

HARRIS: Really?

COWIN: Yes.

HARRIS: Like how?

COWIN: Well, for example, they thought that the best wines in the universe came from America. Now, you might find some wine experts who would disagree, but, you know, American food is great, American wine is great, America, we're great.

HARRIS: That's interesting.

All right, let me look, I love that celebrity question. It says here when you asked them who would they like to have covered in chocolate, you said 46 percent said Russell Crowe, and that beat out Angelina Jolie at 19 percent.

COWIN: Yes. It might sort of speak to the fact that more women answered than men.

HARRIS: I would guess. That's what I'm thinking.

COWIN: Or perhaps it's that you need to be a gladiator to be covered in chocolate.

HARRIS: There you go.

Halle Berry, only 17 percent? You didn't ask me, that's for sure. All right, moving -- the TV family question.

COWIN: Yes?

HARRIS: Now, I was surprised to hear the Cosbys getting such a strong response there, because they haven't been on TV in a long time.

COWIN: Right. I think it's that wholesome family value thing. You know, you want to sit down with a nice family. But you know what topped the list was "The Sopranos" with 40 percent. Everyone wanted to go have some great Italian food.

HARRIS: Ah, there you go. Any differences between men and women evident in the questions that you got? COWIN: Well, generally women care more about food. That's what we found. Because in almost every question it was 70 percent women, 30 percent men who were responding.

HARRIS: No kidding?

All right, how about the pet peeves?

COWIN: Well, when people go out to restaurants, they're truly opinionated, because they're spending their money. So what do they really hate? They hate snotty wait staff, people who will hover or people who will disappear on them. They're, you're not going to tip them at the end of the night. They want good service.

HARRIS: And they don't care about the screaming kids and the smoke and all that stuff anymore? It's more about the waiters? That's interesting.

COWIN: The waiters and cold food.

HARRIS: Really?

COWIN: And cell phones. You know, they hate the cell phones.

HARRIS: You hear that a lot. You hear that one a lot.

How about favorite ethnic food? Italian ranking number one, obviously, as you saw with "The Sopranos" question there.

COWIN: Yes.

HARRIS: Chinese got 19 percent. That's not a very close second. And I think your poll said Italian came in at 72 percent over Chinese at 19 percent?

COWIN: That's correct. The big shocker to us was French coming in very, very last with four percent. And Indian scored higher with five percent than the French.

HARRIS: Oh, very interesting.

All right, finally, the top 10 picks for, you know, the top picks, rather, for home town specialties.

COWIN: New Orleans took the cake. We're talking about veniers (ph) and alligator.

HARRIS: Yes, I've got to admit, New Orleans is maybe my favorite place to eat. Boy.

Hey, Dana, thanks for coming in, Dana.

Dana Cowin, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Great poll. And, folks, if you want the rest of it, check out "Food & Wine" magazine.

COWIN: Thanks.

HARRIS: Have a good one.

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