Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine
Written by Sarah Lohman
Narrated by Sarah Lohman
4/5
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About this audiobook
Eight Flavors introduces the explorers, merchants, botanists, farmers, writers, and chefs whose choices came to define the American palate. Lohman takes you on a journey through the past to tell us something about our present, and our future. We meet John Crowninshield a New England merchant who traveled to Sumatra in the 1790s in search of black pepper and Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old slave who lived on an island off the coast of Madagascar, who discovered the technique still used to pollinate vanilla orchids today. Weaving together original research, historical recipes, and Lohman's own adventures both in the kitchen and in the field, Eight Flavors is a delicious treat-ready to be devoured.
Sarah Lohman
Sarah Lohman is originally from Cleveland, Ohio, where she began working in a museum at the age of sixteen, cooking historic food over a wood-burning stove. Lohman moved to New York in 2006 to work for New York magazine’s food blog, Grub Street, and now works with museums and galleries around the city to create public programs focused on food. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR, and appeared in the Cooking Channel’s Food: Fact or Fiction. The author of the blog Four Pounds Flavor, Eight Flavors is her first book.
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Reviews for Eight Flavors
52 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An interesting look at eight different flavors from a food history perspective. Each flavor has a chapter of its own and is arranged chronologically based on when it became ubiquitous in American kitchens and cuisine (with the last still being new and perhaps not quite as commonplace yet) : black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and sriracha. Lohman also includes some recipes in each chapter, a few of which I'd like to try.I found most interesting the discussions of cultural attitudes towards the flavors and their associated cuisines when they were still considered new to America. MSG, for instance, is much maligned to this day and is even blamed for "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome". Would it have earned its reputation if it was used in another country's cuisine instead?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5EIGHT FLAVORS by Sarah Lohman is an absurdly interesting read about just the elements of some of our food. A “Food Historian”, Ms. Lohman tells of her growing interest in the journey of American tastes from Colonial days to the modern table. She does this not by looking at the dishes that grace our tables today but by the taste elements with those foods. Specifically, she gives us eight different additives which enrich our food as well as please and titillate our palates.By exploring the history of black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG and sriracha she reveals not only how we came to be using those main flavoring ingredients, but also what they replaces, how they were first introduced to our cooking and how so many disparate ingredients from all about the globe became American flavors. Yes, we are the great melting pot and our use of these favors helps to show that despite outer appearances, we are all basically the same.Thrown in are great stories about the people who brought these flavors to our table. You might think that chili powder came from Mexico, but it was actually a Texan of German extraction that made it a common staple in our homes. Mr. Smile gave us curry powder, but he wasn’t always amusing. And the first soy sauce didn’t arrive with an influx of Chinese but rather was first made in a small Georgia town.This book is full of interesting and amazing details, many, many recipies and is just a lot of fun to read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eight Flavors takes the reader from the search for black pepper in 1801 in Salem, MA to the birth of Sriracha in CA in 1980. The twists and turns of the eight flavors and their arrival, embrace and in one case rejection (MSG) in the US makes for an interesting read.Sarah Lohman has done her research and produced a book that not only deals with the history of the eight flavors, but the chemistry, the human interest angles and many ways to experience them. The eight flavors: black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha each have their unique story of the how and why they became an integral part of American cuisine. The most interesting to me was the much maligned MSG. I had bought into the Chinese restaurant syndrome (CRS) with the culprit being MSG. Although I am not a migraine sufferer, I had blamed MSG on various ailments that seemed to present themselves after indulging in a Chinese buffet. But always in the back of my mind was remembering that little canister of Accent that my mom used as a flavor enhancer. The fact that MSG is in many foods we American eat that don’t cause the CRS symptoms was an eye opener for me. An example given in the book was Doritos which contains MSG.The most inspiring flavor to me was the introduction of Sriracha. I have to admit that at the time of this writing, I have not knowingly experienced Sriracha. But I plan to alleviate that very soon. I always assumed it was very hot. I like some very hot food. But I was picturing a reaction similar to eating a tablespoon of wasabi. But after finding out that tabasco on my eggs which I like might be hotter than Sriracha on my eggs makes me want to find out if that is true.If you are into food and into history Eight Flavors will welt your appetite for both.I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchanged for my honest review. Thank you.