Eight Flavors, Sarah Lohman
Eight Flavors, Sarah Lohman
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Eight Flavors
The Untold Story of American Cuisine

Author: Sarah Lohman

Narrator: Sarah Lohman

Unabridged: 8 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/21/2017

Categories: Cooking, Nonfiction


Synopsis

The United States boasts a culturally and ethnically diverse population which makes for a continually changing culinary landscape. But a young historical gastronomist named Sarah Lohman discovered that American food is united by eight flavors: black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha. In Eight Flavors, Lohman sets out to explore how these influential ingredients made their way to the American table.

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.

About 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. Sarah 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 she has appeared in NYC-TV's mini-series Appetite City cooking culinary treats from New York's past. The author of a twice-monthly food feature for Etsy called "Kitchen Histories," Eight Flavors is her first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Felice on August 05, 2019

Sarah Lohman’s Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine offers an eclectic and thought-provoking survey into American culinary culture and palettes. She traces our culinary roots and, through professional and personal experience, as well as meticulous research, offers up the history of ei......more

Goodreads review by Ariela on February 12, 2017

Enjoyed this unique take on history, food and the immigrant story. Not sure the author's thesis that these flavors were any more important than others really holds up, but the stories of each of the flavors were strong enough independently for me not to care that much. Also I rounded up this 3.5 sta......more

Goodreads review by Patty on August 03, 2016

A nonfiction book about the history of American cooking. Lohman organizes the book around eight popular flavors, arranged chronologically as to their appearance in mainstream American food: black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and sriracha. Each has a chapter de......more