Book excerpt: FAMOUS FOODS FROM FAMOUS PLACES have intrigued good cooks for a long time even before fast foods of the 1950's were a curiosity. When cookbooks offer us a sampling of good foods, they seldom devote themselves to the dishes of famous restaurants. There is speculation among the critics as to the virtues of re-creating, at home, the foods that you can buy eating out, such as the fast food fares of the popular franchise restaurants. To each, his own! Who would want to imitate fast food at home? I found that over a million people who saw me demonstrate replicating some famous fast food products on The Phil Donahue Show (July 7, 1981) DID and their letters poured in at a rate of over 15,000 a day for months on end! And while I have investigated the recipes, dishes, and cooking techniques of fine dining rooms around the world, I received more requests from people who wanted to know how to make things like McDonald's Special Sauce or General Foods Shake-N-Bake coating mix or White Castle's hamburgers than I received for those things like Club 21's Coq Au Vin.