Publisher's Weekly Review
In this dazzling debut, James Beard Award--winning food writer Sen looks at the lives of seven remarkable immigrant women whose passion for their homeland's food transformed how Americans cook and eat. While he originally set out to write about immigration using food as his lens, Sen ended up "interrogating the very notion of what success looks like for immigrants under American capitalism." What results is a vibrant, empathetic, and dynamic exploration of culture, identity, race, and gender. The story of Iranian-born cookbook author Najmieh Batmanglij examines how America became, for her, "a wonderful place for the stateless," even as the prejudice she faced in the 1980s stifled the potential reach of her work. The late Chao Yang Buwei's revolutionary How to Cook and Eat in Chinese (1945)--"a manual of gastronomic diplomacy"--and Elena Zelayeta's Mexican cookbooks in the 1960s made their home cuisines palatable for an American audience, while the late acclaimed chef Norma Shirley resisted assimilation and eventually returned to Jamaica, because "making food for white Americans was never her chief aim." Thoughtfully written, Sen's portrayals of his subjects reveal how rich and nuanced being "American" can truly be. Food lovers with a big appetite for knowledge will gobble this up. (Nov.)
Kirkus Review
Historical survey of American cuisine focused on how its development was enriched by transplanted cooks. Making a lively book debut, James Beard Award--winning journalist Sen, who teaches food journalism at NYU, celebrates the accomplishments of seven immigrant women who defiantly introduced new tastes, ingredients, and recipes to their adopted country. As "a queer child of Bengali immigrants to America," Sen identifies with the feeling of isolation that the women experienced as they made their ways as teachers, restaurateurs, and writers. The author seeks "to trouble the canon of culinary brilliance" in a male-dominated field. Drawing on cookbooks, memoirs, interviews, and articles, Sen creates warmly appreciative profiles of each: Chao Yang Buwei, from China; Elena Zelayeta, born in Mexico; French chef Madeleine Kamman; Italian Marcella Hazan; Julie Sahni, who introduced Indian cooking; Najmieh Batmanglij, whose books afforded a rare insight into Iranian culture and cuisine; and Jamaican Norma Shirley. Buwei, who taught herself to cook while she attended medical school, arrived in the U.S. in 1921, accompanying her husband, who had been recruited to teach at Harvard. Like the other women, Buwei saw cooking as an expression of independence as well as creativity. How To Cook and Eat in Chinese, published in 1945, proved groundbreaking for Americans, for whom Chinese food meant little more than chop suey. Zelayeta, also self-taught as a cook, opened a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco that she continued to run even after she lost her sight to a cataract. Elena's Lessons in Living, a self-help book published in 1947, was followed by many cookbooks. In 1950, she briefly hosted a cooking show on a local TV station and, soon after, established her own frozen food business. Kamman, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu, was praised as a "cook's cook" and never attained the celebrity of her rival, Julia Child. As the author examines each woman's culinary contributions, he underscores the influence of food writers, notably Craig Claiborne, in shaping America's tastes. Well-crafted, engaging portraits of culinary and cultural pioneers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
James Beard Award-winning food writer Sen makes the scope of his ambition clear in the introduction to this illuminating work: he seeks to "trouble the canon of culinary brilliance" by highlighting and contextualizing the stories of seven immigrant women (cookbook authors, teachers, and chefs) who transformed concepts of international cuisine in the United States. Sen's biographical essay format allows each woman's life story to shine. The sketches span 70 years of culinary history, including Buwei Yang's influential 1945 book How To Cook and Eat in Chinese and the career of Jamaican chef and restaurateur Norma Shirley, who died in 2005. The other subjects are Iran's Najmieh Batmanglij, Italy's Marcella Hazan, France's Madeleine Kamman, India's Julie Sahni, and Mexico's Elena Zelayeta; there's also a brief essay on Julia Child that ties into the others. Certain themes reappear throughout the book: the tension between presenting authentic dishes and accommodating American appetites; the evolution from home chef to teacher to cookbook writer and restaurant owner; the difficulty of re-establishing a career after a relocation. The extensive notes are a treasure trove for readers interested in historical cookbooks and food writing. VERDICT A must-read for those interested in culinary or women's history and the evolution of American cookbooks.--Rebecca Brody, Westfield State Univ., MA
