TASTE MAKERS Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America

Tovah Ott delivers this unique narrative with focused intelligence. She skillfully narrates the stories of seven immigrant women who influenced American cooking and dining with a fine sense of their ethnicities--Chinese, French, Iranian, Indian, Italian, Mexican, and Jamaican. Ott reveals their personalities, travails, and successes. Author Sen ably tells their disparate stories with rich details of how each came to food and evolved their specialties: writing cookbooks (Marcella Hazan), hosting television shows and creating a brand (Elena Zelayeta), and creating eponymous restaurants (Norma Shirley). They "established their own identities outside their own country." All succeeded on their own terms; some achieved fame, others helped their adopted country experience new tastes, and all dispelled previous notions of their native cuisine. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2021]