Eight flavors : the untold story of American cuisine / Sarah Lohman.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This unique culinary history of America offers a fascinating look at our past and uses long-forgotten recipes to explain how eight flavors changed how we eat.

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.

She begins in the archives, searching through economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records. She pores over cookbooks and manuscripts, dating back to the eighteenth century, through modern standards like How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Lohman discovers when each of these eight flavors first appear in American kitchens--then she asks why.

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, gorgeous illustrations and Lohman's own adventures both in the kitchen and in the field, Eight Flavors is a delicious treat--ready to be devoured.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction: History Has a Flavor (p. ix)
• 1 Black Pepper (p. 1)
• 2 Vanilla (p. 27)
• 3 Chili Powder (p. 55)
• 4 Curry Powder (p. 87)
• 5 Soy Sauce (p. 119)
• 6 Garlic (p. 149)
• 7 Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) (p. 177)
• 8 Sriracha (p. 201)
• Epilogue: The Ninth Flavor (p. 221)
• Acknowledgments (p. 231)
• Notes (p. 233)
• Bibliography (p. 257)
• Index (p. 261)

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Eight Flavors Black pepper Excerpted from Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Have you ever wondered about that rooster on your handy bottle of Sriracha, or why vanilla beans are so expensive, (and are they worth it)? This new work by a noted food writer and blogger looks at eight key ingredients or "flavors" that spice up our meals, including black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and Sriracha. Often it is a highly personal tour, as Lohman goes on site investigating the backstory of these key recipe components. This informative work is part natural history and part memoir, with a few recipes thrown in as a bonus. It is also spiked with some seriously useful tidbits; the trick about when to use artificial vanilla could be worth the price alone. Knowing more about these everyday kitchen items can help us become both better cooks and consumers, plus readers will be able to astound friends and family with newfound knowledge of soy sauce brewing. VERDICT A lively compendium of facts and trivia about essential ingredients. Purchase for larger cookery collections.-Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Food writer Lohman uses eight key flavors to launch an entertaining tour through the tastes that have made American food the "most complex and diverse cuisine on the planet." The story of America's embrace of black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG (monosodium glutamate) and sriracha demonstrates how travel, immigration, science, and technology continue to influence what Americans eat. From her opening story of John Crowninshield of Massachusetts, who returned to the U.S. from Sumatra with commercial quantities of black pepper in the early 19th century, to her rousing defense of MSG, Lohman's thoughtful, conversational style and infectious curiosity make the book wholly delightful. As a bonus for enthusiastic amateurs, Lohman includes well-researched historic recipes, such as Thomas Jefferson's vanilla ice cream. This Founding Father was responsible for introducing the noble dairy treat to the country, via the French chef he brought home with him in the 1780s. A more modern but equally heroic tale is that of sriracha, invented in California by an immigrant, David Tran. Tran named his company, Huy Fong Foods, after the refugee ship he and his family fled Vietnam on-a Panamanian freighter called the Huey Fong. Lohman's book gives fascinating new insight into what we eat. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Although diverse and rapidly evolving over the centuries, American cuisine has been united by (in rough chronological order) the flavors of black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and sriracha. In this work, each flavor is thoroughly described in its own chapter, and the associated "heroes" are recognized. The flavors covered in this work were identified via a search of Google's digitized books (the author set the search range from 1796 to 2000), using Google's Ngram Viewer. Common flavors such as coffee and chocolate are not discussed, as they are covered in a multitude of other sources. Several topics include how black pepper (the most popular American spice for the longest time) was once quite expensive, the origin of chili powder, how garlic is the most utilized flavor (compared to the other flavors discussed in this book), the controversy surrounding MSG, and the rise in popularity of sriracha. The last chapter covers other emerging popular flavors--especially pumpkin. The author includes several recipes in the text that utilize flavors from the book. The work concludes with notes, a bibliography, and an index, which serve as helpful resources for those who wish to learn more about this topic. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Robert Edward Buntrock, independent scholar

Booklist Review

Every culture across the globe is uniquely characterized by its cuisine. The food of American culture is distinct in that it has been notably influenced by the myriad ethnicities residing throughout the country. Lohman, a historical gastronomist, presents the eight flavors black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, monosodium glutamate, and sriracha that are utilized most often in American cookbooks from 1796 to 2000. Each chapter focuses on one flavor and gives a well-researched historical context, along with a dash of Lohman's own personal experiences with the flavor, from teaching a black-pepper tasting class to helping work a chili food truck to attending a multicourse garlic degustation. Historical and interestingly updated recipes that feature each flavor such as Thomas Jefferson's French Vanilla Ice Cream, Soy Sauce Chocolate Mousse with Fruit Compote, and the Rosemary House Garlic Carrot Cake are sprinkled throughout the text. This delicious history of these now-ubiquitous ingredients will have readers savoring each page and licking their lips for a taste for more.--Smith, Becca Copyright 2016 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A tasty historical study of flavorful mainstays of American cuisine.Serving as a culinary archaeologist of sorts, this self-described food historian and blogger raided spice cabinets and pantries across the U.S. to produce this fascinating overview of what she believes to be the eight major flavors of the land: black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, garlic, soy sauce, monosodium glutamate, and Sriracha (the only questionable inclusion, but Lohman makes a convincing case). In her ambitious attempt to characterize American cuisine, the author found it essential to identify commonalities among the disparate regions and ethnicities that have flourished here. She accomplished this by combing old cookbooks and researching past and present consumption patterns in the U.S. She admits that there are really 10 dominant flavors in the U.S., but so much has been written about chocolate and coffee as to warrant their exclusion here. The authors decision to isolate popular flavors, as opposed to assessing common dishes or particular cooking techniques, allowed her to focus on the history and growth of their influence on the American palate, making this account often as much about the men and women responsible for introducing each flavor. Thus readers will find a treasure trove of spicy trivia, ranging from staggering statistics on the amount of black pepper sold in the U.S. each year158 million poundsor how much garlic is consumedannually, two pounds per personalongside entrepreneurial tales like that of the Chili Queens of San Antonio, whose namesake dish sold daily on Alamo Plaza inspired German immigrant William Gebhardt to try to emulate it and led to his invention of a dry chili powder patented in 1897. Lohman also tells the moving back story of how the modern cultivation of vanilla derives from a pollination technique developed by Edmond Albius, a slave, and exposes and attempts to debunk how MSG, the defining savory taste of umami isolated by 20th-century biochemist Kikunae Ikeda, came by its bad rap. A tantalizing look at flavors of the American table that foodies will absolutely devour. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.