Food in the Field gives a sneak peek into what CNN's team is eating, and the food culture they encounter as they travel the globe. Today's contributor is CNN photojournalist Ken Tuohey.

I was just 10 years old when my dad was accepted to the University of Nebraska to complete his Masters degree. I didn’t want to leave the sunny beaches of Southern California, but as a kid, moving halfway across the country sounded exciting. I know better now.

I vividly remember driving through the seemingly endless cornfields, wading thru the city streets with snow up to my waist as we walked to an evening matinee and the fanatical “Big Red” fans who made the town of Lincoln look as if the apocalypse had whenever a football game was in town.

And there was one other thing: the runza.

It’s a delicious hot pastry, filled with ground beef, onions, and cabbage, and was brought by German-Russian immigrants to the United States. It’s a close cousin to the Kansas favorite, the bierock, and it’s m-m-mmm good.
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Editor's note: The Southern Foodways Alliance delves deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. Dig in.

If you make your way to St. Louis, Missouri, any time soon, ask a local to show you one of their barbecue specialties: snoots. In both editions of the classic guidebook Real Barbecue (1988 and 2007), authors Greg Johnson and Vince Staten put it this way: "First we'd better deal with 'snoots.' Snoots are part of the soul-food barbecue scene in St. Louis that will stare at you at the C & K, as well as any number of other places in town and across the river in East St. Louis. Snoots are deep-fried pig noses."

At Smoki O's, another St. Louis barbecue joint, they smoke their snoots for a couple of hours instead of frying them. Whether boiled, fried, or smoked, snoots get doused with barbecue sauce and are meant to be eaten right away.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

You know the drill. You’re on line at Starbucks, you order a mocha cookie crumble frappuccino from the barista, give him or her your name and wait impatiently for it to be called out so you can grab the last available armchair.
 
Or not - at least if you’re a Brit lining up in a London Starbucks. There, locals resent giving up such classified info, according to a BBC News story titled "Will You Tell Starbucks Your Name?" "I am not looking to make friends when I go into a coffee shop. I just want a drink," the English actor Arthur Smith told the BBC. "I don't want to go clubbing with them."
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Andreas Preuss is a Supervising Producer at CNN. He's based in Atlanta, but New Orleans is his happy place.

For the next two weekends, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is ground zero for music lovers, food enthusiasts and anyone who wants to soak up the culture of South Louisiana. There's a lot to offer on all these fronts. For me, as a native New Orleanian, it's the best two weekends on earth.

You really can't go wrong at the Jazz Fest; there are food booths setup in strategic locations around the site at the New Orleans Fairgrounds. Locals know how to navigate the field and for visitors it's a bit of delicious hide and seek.

One of the best ways to meet and eat is by sitting with some fellow festival goers. There are small tables set up around the food booths – and they can quickly become a sort of buffet of what people are eating. You hear a lot of "What's that?" and "Where did you find it?" and the inevitable "Wanna try a bite?" I tend to be nomadic in my Jazz Fest feasting. And just like exploring the city itself, there's a new food adventure around every corner.

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Matt Sloane is a CNN Medical producer. He seeks to rid the world of sub-par cheesesteaks.

As a Philly-area native, nothing offends me more than a bad cheesesteak - and there are a lot of bad cheesesteaks out there. So, having been a connoisseur for almost 30 years, I've learned a thing or two about what makes them amazing.

Let me be clear about something: there are steak and cheese sandwiches, and there are cheesesteaks. They are not the same thing.

Restaurants, take notice. If you call it a cheesesteak, it had better be greasy, cheesy, and chopped up. If there are chunks of steak, brie, or horseradish sauce, it's a steak and cheese sandwich.

So, what's the magic recipe for a perfect Philly cheesesteak? In this case, less is more. A good cheesesteak should consist of only three main components: the bread, the steak and the cheese. If you want to put fried onions on it, I'll give you a pass, but I personally am a purist.
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Romney, Bachmann, Santorum and the rest of the '12 class of G.O.P. hopefuls (along with the attendant hordes of media folk) have descended upon Iowa to make pals with the caucusing public over pork products and pancakes. A diner is a fine place for these aspiring candidates to chow down with the hoi polloi, but if they really wanted to show the locals that they're not just flying by, they'd have made right for a Maid-Rite.

Since 1926, Iowans have been feasting on the the iconic "loose meat" sandwich, invented by Muscatine, Iowa butcher Fred Angell. Angell began franchising the idea throughout the Hawkeye State under the name "Maid-Rite" after a delivery man he'd drafted to taste his creation purportedly said, "You know, Fred, this sandwich is just made right."
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The owner of a south Philadelphia cheesesteak shop who once instructed customers to order only in English has died, according to to relatives.

Joey Vento had a heart attack at home and died Tuesday on the way to the hospital, said Joseph Perno, his nephew and manager of the shop.

"Things are a little somber tonight," Perno told CNN affiliate KYW behind the grill at Geno's. "But he's in our hearts."

Vento founded Geno's in 1966 in Philadelphia, where it sits across the street from another cheesesteak shop, Pat's King of Steaks.

Read Philly cheesesteak shop owner who told customers to order in English dies

Previously - Get your Philly cheesesteak on – in Bahrain

Now that lunchtime's schmancy canapes and gâteaux opera have long since been washed down with nebuchadnezzars of bubbly and royal wedding guests have shaken their tasteful tail feathers all night long, what's to stop imbibers from being crowned by a king-sized hangover?
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Kimberly Segal is a CNN Supervising Producer

People associate the Jersey Shore with casinos, salt water taffy and now reality star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi. What does not come to mind, but rightly should, is the South Jersey sub - a signature sandwich is similar to what people in other parts of the country call a hoagie, grinder or hero.

It is not just the medley of meats and cheese that make this sandwich so special. "Atlantic City bread is unlike any other bread that you get anywhere else in the world," says Aaron Marinari, who grew up in this shore town and now lives in California. Marinari has put this theory to the test.

He went to the best deli in his new hometown and bought all the ingredients to try to replicate the sub that he grew up eating. "I put the whole sandwich together but it's nothing compared to home," Marinari adds, "It did not come close to fulfilling my craving for a New Jersey sub."
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Food in the Field gives a sneak peek into what CNN's team is eating, and the food culture they encounter as they travel the globe.

CNN International sports correspondent Patrick Snell samples the classic pimento cheese sandwich at The Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia - for "work purposes," you understand.

Read more on the storm-based pimento cheese shortage earlier this week and the other, bizarrely economical items on the menu at The Masters.

More from Back|Story and dispatches from The Masters