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The Taste of Conquest
- The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
Written in a colorful style that will appeal to fans of Mark Kurlansky and Michael Pollan, this ambitious yet accessible book travels effortlessly from the Crusades to the present day. Michael Krondl explains that it was the desire for spices that got international trade up and running on a scale that had never occurred prior to that time. This explosive growth of the spice trade led to the successive rise and fall of Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam.
Krondl, a gifted food writer, travels to each of these great cities and begins his visit with a great meal. Gradually, he merges the menu he's enjoying with the city's colorful past, and listeners are off on a gastronomical tour that teaches them not only about food and spice but also about history and commerce.
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Very interesting and Germane to Today's World
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Super Sushi Ramen Express
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- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
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Japan is arguably the preeminent food nation on earth, a Mecca for the world's greatest chefs, with more Michelin stars than any other country. The Japanese go to extraordinary lengths and expense to eat food that is marked both by its exquisite preparation and exotic content. Their creativity, dedication, and courage in the face of dishes such as cod sperm and octopus ice cream is only now beginning to be fully appreciated in the sushi and ramen-saturated West.
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Interesting material that's well-narrated
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By: Michael Booth
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A History of the World in 6 Glasses
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Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola.
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Fun and Informative
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By: Tom Standage
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Eight Flavors
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- Narrated by: Sarah Lohman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
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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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The Brewer's Tale
- A History of the World According to Beer
- By: William Bostwick
- Narrated by: Christopher Sutton
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
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The Brewer's Tale is a beer-filled journey into the past: the story of brewers gone by and one brave writer's quest to bring them - and their ancient, forgotten beers - back to life, one taste at a time. This is the story of the world according to beer, a toast to flavors born of necessity and place - in Belgian monasteries, rundown farmhouses, and the basement nanobrewery next door. So pull up a barstool and raise a glass to 5,000 years of fermented magic.
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Good insights!
- By Michael on 03-08-16
By: William Bostwick
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For All the Tea in China
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- Narrated by: Sarah Rose
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In 1848, the British East India Company, having lost its monopoly on the tea trade, engaged Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, botanist, and plant hunter, to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea horticulture and manufacturing. For All the Tea in China is the remarkable account of Fortune's journeys into China - a thrilling narrative that combines history, geography, botany, natural science, and old-fashioned adventure.
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Like Fingernails on a Chalkboard
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By: Sarah Rose
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A Perfect Red
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A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal.
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History of a peculiar substance through the ages
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1493
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- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.
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Fascinating Mindbending History.
- By Betsy Powel on 12-19-11
By: Charles C. Mann
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The United States of Beer
- A Freewheeling History of the All-American Drink
- By: Dane Huckelbridge
- Narrated by: Corey Snow
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
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Huckelbridge shows how beer has evolved along with the country - from a local and regional product (once upon a time, every American city had its own brewery and iconic beer brand) to the rise of global megabrands, like Budweiser and Miller, that are synonymous with US capitalism. We learn of George Washington's failed attempt to brew beer at Mount Vernon with molasses instead of barley and of the 19th-century "beer barons", like Captain Frederick Pabst, Adolphus Busch, and Joseph Schlitz.
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History Humanized
- By Dave on 06-25-16
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Rice, Noodle, Fish
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- By: Matt Goulding
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
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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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A Bite-Sized History of France
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- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
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From the cassoulet that won a war to the crêpe that doomed Napoleon, from the rebellions sparked by bread and salt to the new cuisines forged by empire, the history of France is intimately entwined with its gastronomic pursuits. A witty exploration of the facts and legends surrounding some of the most popular French foods and wines by a French cheesemonger and an American academic, A Bite-Sized History of France tells the compelling and often surprising story of France from the Roman era to modern times.
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Great stories, but...
- By David on 01-12-20
By: Stephane Henaut, and others
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What listeners say about The Taste of Conquest
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Book Maverick
- 07-12-13
Sloppy narrator
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
There were so many food-related mis-pronunciations by the narrator that is was annoying: galangale, confit. Not very good research or practice and his part and sloppy editing!
In general, the book was well written and kept my attention, but I will avoid other works narrated by Todd McLaren.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Todd McLaren?
Someone with food knowledge
Was The Taste of Conquest worth the listening time?
Historical significance
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2 people found this helpful
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- LAMBROS LAMBROU
- 12-13-20
Interesting and informative
I enjoyed listening to this book very much! It's interesting and informative, but also quite entertaining. The Medieval and Renaissance passion for spices is well known, but the fascinating details of the spice trade are less so. Todd McLaren's narration was great, with perfect pacing, a suitable tone (humorous and serious, according to the needs of the text) and an easy conversational style that I personally find extremely engaging in an audiobook narration.
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- R. Cryan
- 01-16-17
Lazy narrator
The narrator of this book is fine for the most part, and would be an excellent narrator for an American story with all American names and characters and places.
However, he didn't bother to learn many of the foreign pronunciations in this book, mispronouncing Joao, Felipe, Jan, and a dozen other personal and place names I recognized, and I don't know how many that I don't know any better about. This is a problem for a book about foreign lands and foods.
(Some of his foreign accents were way off, as well, but that's a minor issue.)
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1 person found this helpful
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- John Arteaga
- 08-10-17
Foodies
The book was excellent read and a must for food lovers and/ or foodies. Enjoyed it
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Overall
- Art
- 12-24-09
Not bad
Author interview on the radio was more fascinating than book. Was looking for a little more history and a little less spice.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- EmperorTab
- 10-19-08
Not that bad.
I thought this was actually an interesting book. I'm interested in Venetian and Portuguese history, and this has some interesting insights. Also, the spice trade is a fascinating historical episode. The author obviously knows what he is talking about when it comes to food, and it is a novel idea having a chef as a historian working through food.
I have to agree with the other reviewers, though... the narrator can't pronounce his way out of a wet paper bag. But, I guess I'm more inclined to overlook something like that if the book itself is intersting.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Jason Mraz
- 09-06-20
Great history of spices & of Venice, Lisbon and Amsterdam
The Taste of Conquest does an excellent job of summarizing the history of the spice trade in Western Europe. Krondl’s research makes the history come to life - feels like reading a food channel special
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- Gypsi
- 10-31-23
Light but Interesting
In this nonfiction, Krondl gives the history of the spice trade through the three most important spice trading cities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam. It's easy to follow and, though light, still informative and enjoyable.
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Overall
- Mair
- 04-03-08
not so tasty
Although I heard the author interviewed on the radio where he and the subject sounded fascinating, we were not enthralled with the book or the reader. The book seemed in serious need of an editor. And the reader had such strange pronunciations on words in French, Italian, Spanish and - yes - even English that we were being constantly thrown off balance. After about an hour, we gave it up as a loss. Alas.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Elza
- 05-02-08
Not spicey.
With a subject as interesting as the history of spice, this was unfortunately a bit of a dull listen. However the pronunciation of the reader was annoying at times especially with the Dutch words which could not even be recognized by a native speaker. Why not check with someone prior to venturing out on a project like this?
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6 people found this helpful