JAMBOREE

For anyone who has ever dreamed of partying on the beach with a huge, all-the-fixin's clambake--complete with damp rocks, a recalcitrant fire and lobsters that trudge purposefully out from under the tarp--Sheila Lukins' U.S.A. Cookbook (Workman; $19.95) is the way to go. Better to read about her fresh peas than harvest your own bullets, and to serve her herbed bass than your limp concoction that drives the guests out after the lobsters.

The author is the doyenne of American home cooking, and the best parts of her book are little sideline essays about the byways of food, such as planking shad, making piccalilli, a section on fresh-fruit desserts (including a silken strawberry ice) and the ineffable glory of peaches (part of the rose family, she reports). Lukins writes with the unforced authority of her affection for the U.S., which she crisscrossed 50 times to gather the 600 recipes here. United Airlines has just gone American and is serving 36,000 dishes a day from U.S.A. Cookbook. As porch reading, it's a whopper, but it would be hard to find a better culinary guide to the salad days of summer.