{"id":14138,"date":"2016-11-21T12:59:35","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T20:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/?p=14138"},"modified":"2018-01-11T17:30:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T01:30:44","slug":"eight-flavors-by-sarah-lohman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/eight-flavors-by-sarah-lohman\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Flavors by Sarah Lohman"},"content":{"rendered":"

**ARC provided by the publisher for review. I may receive a commission if you purchase an item via links\u00a0below.**<\/em><\/p>\n

Go look in your pantry and fridge and almost certainly you\u2019ll find these eight items in your kitchen: black pepper, garlic, vanilla, chili powder, curry, soy sauce, sriracha, and MSG. They\u2019ve been there so long, you probably take them for granted. And still, it’s hard to imagine how bland our diets would be without them.<\/p>\n

Sarah Lohman\u2019s Eight Flavors<\/a> is part history, part food anthropology. Chronicling the arrival and mainstreaming of these eight ingredients on American shores and in American kitchens, it’s well-researched and full of interesting factoids. And now, in the aftermath of The Election, it’s a book that\u2019s more relevant than ever as a new president prepares to enter the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

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Immigration has had an indelible influence on what Americans\u00a0eat. In Eight Flavors, Lohman is bringing those immigrant stories to light and it’s an effort that’s to be applauded. Ingredients and dishes that\u00a0may have started as a novelty were slowly but surely assimilated to fit “American” tastes of their time. It’s a book you’ll likely choose chapters to read based on personal interest in a given ingredient. I ended up jumping around rather than reading straight through.<\/p>\n

It may be the lingering haze of The Election coloring my view, or the reminder that in America, you can be American and still not American enough, <\/em>but here’s where I’m struggling with Eight Flavors. I’ve gone back and forth on this in my mind over the last week. Who is this book for? Is Eight Flavors meant for my Caucasian-American side, because it doesn’t seem to be for my Japanese-American side. (Not that you can really separate\u00a0the two, but you get the point). Citations from the New York Times are rampant in this book. While the Grey Lady has long been regarded as “The<\/em>” newspaper in the United States, it’s only one lens<\/strong>, and arguably a Northeast\u00a0elite one, especially when we’re talking about the 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n