Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine

Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Part cookbook, part history, and part travelogue, this is an interesting look at how different flavors have influence American food from before the founding of the country to the present. As the title states, Lohman examines how eight different items (black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and sriracha) came to be used and influence the foods that Americans love. She uses historical and modern recipes, from Martha Washington's Black Pepper Cookies to Thai omelets with sriracha, to demonstrate how the flavors have been used and so the reader can try them out themselves, if so inclined. She describes her visits to places where the spices are grown, describes the ebbs and flows of the public's taste for these items and delves into the science behind questions like "does MSG cause headaches?"

The book works better as a print book than an audio book, if you are trying to decide on a format. If you want to try the recipes, you'd rather have them printed out, I'm sure, and if you don't, then it isn't terribly interesting listening to someone read a recipe (and there are a good many recipes in the book).

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