Taste Makers

More of a 3.5.

I think I saw this book being reviewed by one of the booktubers or bloggers I follow and immediately decided to try it out. I've been an immigrant for almost a decade but I'm not fond of cooking, and as such love looking for places I can find delicious Indian food in America. So, I found the premise of this book very fascinating.

And I have to agree, these seven women the author talks about are phenomenal. Some of them were probably the right people at the right time to introduce and popularize their country's cuisine to the American audience, but others battled hardships in life and prejudices in the minds of people to establish themselves and their cooking. They are very inspirational as well as aspirational, and it saddened me that I knew of none of them except Julia Child before picking up this book. I was especially in awe of Najmieh Batmanglij who used her cooking as a way to reach the Iranian diaspora, and especially those in exile like her, never shying away from making political points through her cooking and trying to keep the Iranian spirit from before the revolution alive.

However, I did feel like we got to know these women on a very surface level. I can understand now that the author didn't have many sources to refer to for a couple of them, but maybe we could have gotten to know more about the others, particularly Julie and Najmieh to whom the author did have access to. I guess I just have to read the autobiographies some of these amazing taste makers have written though it seems that most of them are out of print. But it's important to remember and the many others who have carved a place for themselves in the culinary world despite not being white and privileged and not being the darlings of the establishment.