An Englishman ate his first pecan pie and fell for American diners

British writer Henry Oliver had his first slice of pecan pie in a Bethesda, Maryland diner, and came away amazed that Americans eat this well every day. In The Common Reader, he calls the pie part of "the ordinary sublime of American life," and says it "knocks English apple crumble into a cocked hat."

The diner had kept its old fittings, its Maxwell House pots, and a broken jukebox. Oliver traces the wooden booths back to the railway dining car, and then to church pews, echoing the Protestant churches along Washington's 16th Street NW. "Diners are still, just about, America's secular churches," he writes. "Every man is a success in a diner: equal among eaters."

He has been visiting diners for years — a quiet Manhattan place he got to before work, a Boston diner where police officers ate muffins and drank coffee from blue-and-white cups. A hot slice with ice cream, he writes, is "a small plate of delight for anyone with $4."

Previously:
• Private equity group eats Denny's for breakfast
• Photographer captures America's vanishing roadside treasures in stunning new book
• 11,000 public domain photographs of America's forgotten roadside attractions