A burger stands a solid chance of deliciousness just about anywhere, and great chocolate cake knows no geographic boundaries. If you're chowing down on a runza sandwich, though, there's a good chance you're in the great state of Nebraska. A big, bubbling dish of burgoo in front of you means that you're kicking back in Kentucky, livermush has landed you in the Tarheel State, and a steamed cheeseburger centers you smack dab in Meriden, Connecticut.

CNN Money is in search of the Best Places to Eat in America, and they're asking readers to share their favorite hometown dishes and explain why they're so loved.

Submit your favorite dish using iReport and ask your friends and neighbors to vote. The food with the most hometown support will be named Fan Favorite.

Visit Best Places to Eat in America: Fan Favorite Food

The United States is stepping in to help bail out another American industry - chicken farmers and meat processors.

The nation's chicken industry is having a difficult year. Chicken producers are struggling with higher costs of running their business at the same time that consumers are buying less meat.

This has created a glut of chicken products in the market.
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Past and present politicos have tried to secure the "nom" in nominee at every state fair from Des Moines to St. Paul.

We rounded up some of the best down and dirty political shtick on a stick in the gallery above.

Be sure to keep up with the CNN Political Team as they share the juiciest food stories from the campaign trail at eatocracy.com/politicalteam.

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On National Rum Day, enjoy the rummiest classic recipe we could find. From our 1941 edition of W.C. Whitfield's drink mixing masterpiece 'Here's How' - a Zombie cocktail that calls for no fewer than five (5) different varieties of rum.

And if we had any braaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiinssssssss, we'd recall where we'd last seen our Zombie glass...

Previously - Vintage egg cocktail recipes and Vintage punch recipes
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Sink your teeth into today's top stories from around the globe.

• Packing school lunch like a chef. (Spoiler alert: There aren't pudding cups involved) - Esquire

• Why yes, that is a zen meat garden! - Moonmilk via Michele Humes

• The ten best new restaurants in America are... - Bon Appétit

• The Babka Chronicles: Family recipes are a written history of the family itself. - Gilt Taste

• Give black garlic fish sausage a try! It's "kind of like a fish hot dog." Yum-o! - Who Eats That Stuff

If you see my colleague Jo Parker striding toward you with a jar of peanut butter - beware. Chances are, she's got a Vidalia onion hidden somewhere on her person, and she's gonna try to make you eat these things together on bread.

She means well, and she's just trying to spread the love of a childhood favorite. As Jo wrote to me, "The cool, crunchy sweetness of Vidalias pairs terrifically with the peanuttiness. Smooth or crunchy – up to you. I remember eating these as a girl in Illinois, but I really don’t know the sandwich’s pedigree."

Now, most people would be content to enjoy their idiosyncratic creation behind closed doors. A strange sandwich is a private pleasure, borne of tradition, unsupervised youthful experimentation, between-paycheck thrift or, let's face it, coming home wicked hammered and having the wherewithal the next morning to recall an effective combination of ingredients.
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While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Start your engines for some rum-running - August 16 is National Rum Day!

Quench your thirst and partake in this sweet Caribbean spirit today. Made by distilling the byproducts of molasses and sugarcane, rum ends up the strong, silent type on the scale of alcoholic beverages.
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Linda Petty is an editor at CNN Living. She likes boxed mixes, tarted-up vegetables, letting produce rot in her crisper, eating breakfast at her desk, raiding your pantry, ice cream cones and other frozen delights.

Some years ago, my family's dog Penny made off with a rump roast that had been left defrosting on a counter while we were all out running errands. My mother assumed the dog ate the entire thing because she couldn’t find even the tiniest scrap left of the meat.

But I found a big hunk of it - several days later when I did a headstand in the box of clothes my siblings and I used for playing dress-up. I screamed, then my mother screamed and Penny went into hiding while we disposed of the now quite ripe evidence.
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Pssst! Got a sec to chat?

We are utterly thrilled when readers want to hang out and talk – whether it's amongst themselves or in response to pieces we've posted. We want Eatocracy to be a cozy, spirited online home for those who find their way here.

Consider the daily Coffee Klatsch post as your VIP lounge – the primary comments thread for readers who'd like to chat about topics not related to the articles we're running. That way, everyone knows where to find each other, and each post's comments section remains on topic.
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