Taste Makers
Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America
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Narrated by:
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Tovah Ott
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By:
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Mayukh Sen
About this listen
Who’s really behind America’s appetite for foods from around the globe? This group biography from an electric new voice in food writing honors seven extraordinary women, all immigrants, who left an indelible mark on the way Americans eat today. Taste Makers stretches from World War II to the present, with absorbing and deeply researched portraits of figures including Mexican-born Elena Zelayeta, a blind chef; Marcella Hazan, the deity of Italian cuisine; and Norma Shirley, a champion of Jamaican dishes.
In imaginative, lively prose, Mayukh Sen—a queer, brown child of immigrants—reconstructs the lives of these women in vivid and empathetic detail, daring to ask why some were famous in their own time, but not in ours, and why others shine brightly even today. Weaving together histories of food, immigration, and gender, Taste Makers will challenge the way listeners look at what’s on their plate—and the women whose labor, overlooked for so long, makes those meals possible.
©2021 Mayukh Sen (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Taste Makers introduced me to the life stories of extraordinary women and offered me an invigorating history of cooking - as life's purpose, as pleasure, as political act - in America. Mayukh Sen writes with great heart and a spirit of vibrant inquiry to give us a magnificent book." (Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning)
"Reading Taste Makers is a lot like enjoying an amazing meal: It surprises you, fills you, and you're sorry when it's over. Mayukh Sen has crafted something truly special, a book where women's stories take center stage." (Jessica Valenti, author of Sex Object: A Memoir)
"Mayukh Sen isn't the first to write about women who made significant cultural contributions while being undervalued during their lifetimes, and even more so in death. But he does it in such a way as to make you think he might be the first. He is acutely aware of the cliches that have come to inhibit the genre, and he both challenges and upends them." (Charlotte Druckman, editor of Women on Food)
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By: Andrew Friedman
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Chop Suey
- A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States
- By: Andrew Coe
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States - by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey, Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.
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Wanted to like this
- By Irene on 02-13-21
By: Andrew Coe
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Rice, Noodle, Fish
- Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents, Book 1)
- By: Matt Goulding
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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An innovative new take on the travel guide, Rice, Noodle, Fish decodes Japan's extraordinary food culture through a mix of in-depth narrative and insider advice. In this 5,000-mile journey through the noodle shops, tempura temples, and teahouses of Japan, Matt Goulding, cocreator of the enormously popular Eat This, Not That! book series, navigates the intersection between food, history, and culture, creating one of the most ambitious and complete books ever written about Japanese culinary culture from the Western perspective.
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Starts strong tapers off
- By Craig Bryan on 01-02-21
By: Matt Goulding
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The President’s Kitchen Cabinet
- The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas
- By: Adrian Miller
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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James Beard award - winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation's history.
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Disappointed
- By TS on 08-17-21
By: Adrian Miller
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High on the Hog
- A Culinary Journey from Africa to America
- By: Jessica B. Harris
- Narrated by: Jessica Harris
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris weaves an utterly engaging history of African American cuisine, taking the listener on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, and tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way. From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form an important part of African American culture, history, and identity.
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more of a history lesson than a culinary book
- By Scott Johnson on 09-02-15
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My Place at the Table
- A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris
- By: Alexander Lobrano
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A mouthwatering testament to the healing power of food, My Place at the Table is a moving coming-of-age story of how a gay man emerges from a wounding childhood, discovers himself, and finds love. Published here for the first time is Lobrano’s “little black book,” an insider’s guide to his thirty all-time-favorite Paris restaurants.
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Great foodie talk, great palate
- By daily walker on 07-02-21
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Hippie Food
- How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat
- By: Jonathan Kauffman
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Food writer Jonathan Kauffman journeys back more than half a century - to the 1960s and 1970s - to tell the story of how a coterie of unusual men and women embraced an alternative lifestyle that would ultimately change how modern Americans eat. Impeccably researched, Hippie Food chronicles how the longhairs, revolutionaries, and back-to-the-landers rejected the square establishment of President Richard Nixon's America and turned to a more idealistic and wholesome communal way of life and food.
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If you grew up eating health food you'll love it
- By Susie Wyshak on 05-09-18
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JGV
- A Life in 12 Recipes
- By: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Michael Ruhlman
- Narrated by: Eric Yves Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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From his first apprenticeship in France to his Michelin-starred restaurant empire, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s cuisine is inspired by the freshest ingredients, the simplest techniques, and the drive to make the ordinary perfect. It all started at home. JGV is an invitation into the kitchen with a master chef. With humor and heart, Jean-Georges looks back on success and failure, sharing stories of cooking with legendary chefs Paul Bocuse and Louis Outhier, traveling in search of new and revelatory flavors, and building menus of his own.
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Informative and fun!
- By David Stuk on 11-24-22
By: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and others
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Out of Line
- A Life of Playing with Fire
- By: Barbara Lynch
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Out of Line describes Lynch's remarkable process of self-invention, including her encounters with colorful characters of the food world, and vividly evokes the magic of creation in the kitchen. It is also a love letter to South Boston and its vanishing culture, governed by Irish Catholic mothers and its own code of honor. Through her story, Lynch explores how the past - both what we strive to escape from and what we remain true to - can strengthen and expand who we are.
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Hardheaded, arrogant, profane.
- By Minneapolis listener on 10-26-22
By: Barbara Lynch
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Eight Flavors
- The Untold Story of American Cuisine
- By: Sarah Lohman
- Narrated by: Sarah Lohman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Great read... Terrible accents
- By S. Macklin on 12-14-18
By: Sarah Lohman
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World Travel
- An Irreverent Guide
- By: Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever
- Narrated by: Laurie Woolever, Shep Gordon, Christopher Bourdain, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from the hidden pockets of his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to Tanzania’s utter beauty and the stunning desert solitude of Oman’s Empty Quarter - and many places beyond. In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives listeners an introduction to some of his favorite places - in his own words.
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Poor man’s version of Lonely Planet guidebooks
- By KC on 04-23-21
By: Anthony Bourdain, and others
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Drive-Thru Dreams
- A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom
- By: Adam Chandler
- Narrated by: Adam Chandler
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Most any honest person can own up to harboring at least one fast-food guilty pleasure. In Drive-Thru Dreams, Adam Chandler explores the inseparable link between fast food and American life for the past century. The dark underbelly of the industry’s largest players has long been scrutinized and gutted, characterized as impersonal, greedy, corporate, and worse. But, in unexpected ways, fast food is also deeply personal and emblematic of a larger-than-life image of America.
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Road Trip Audio!
- By Anonazon on 06-28-19
By: Adam Chandler
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A Square Meal
- A Culinary History of the Great Depression
- By: Jane Ziegelman, Andrew Coe
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country's political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America's relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse of the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished - shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder.
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Not entirely accurate title
- By Robert on 06-07-17
By: Jane Ziegelman, and others
What listeners say about Taste Makers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jean Burke-Spraker
- 04-10-22
Seven fantastic stories about immigrant women who taught Americans to cook
I loved every story in this essay collection about seven immigrant women who revolutionized the way Americans eat.
My favorites were Chao Yang Buwei and Julie Sahni.
Many themes recur throughout the book.
Translation plays a crucial role in Sen’s narrative. Often, these women had their recipes translated by their husbands.
That did not always go well.
In truth, cooking itself is an act of translation. The women often found that they had to adapt ingredients and preparations to American kitchens and American tastes.
And then when publishing, they found an additional act of translation impeded their vision so that their books would sell.
White cookbook editors simply did not understand these women.
And if I am being honest, the tendency of immigrant food writers today to push beyond recipes and tell deeper cultural stories as Sen does here doesn’t just feel like a capitulation to SEO.
It feels like a revolutionary act that rejects the way these women’s stories too often were butchered so that their books would sell.
I hope Sen writes another book. His Afterword is a call to action for how to make the food industry more equitable.
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