2.5 rounded up to 3
The subtitle of this book is “Around the world in search of food, history, and the meaning of home”. It is in parts a biographical essay, travelogue, world history, and culinary opinion piece. There was not enough structure or continuity for this reader who was left with many questions and few lasting insights. Not quite sure yet why it fell so flat for this reader, but here we are.

With thanks to NetGalley and ThePenguin Press for access to the e-ARC in exchange for this impartial review.

Anya von Bremzen is such a fabulous writer, and I am so glad I read this arc. It's definitely worth reading, and the illustrations are incredibly fun.

This was an interesting read if you have an interest in food and cultures. It takes you on a journey to iconic food locations and the history of their dishes. I personally would have enjoyed if there would have been some recipes included for the national dishes.

National Dish is a very unique nonfiction book in which this author discusses traveling to various countries in order to research dishes that represent their country's national cuisine and throughout the entire book she's having an ongoing discussion about food as identity in a now very globalized world. I think if you liked Stanley Tucci's show, Searching for Italy, then you will really enjoy this book because it's got the same combination of food and travel, but also history and culture, plus the host or the author's personal involvement in the research process.

I learned a ton from this book. I especially appreciated the conversation about food myths during the Italy chapter, but I did walk away from this book feeling like it was just a little bit too much.

Anya Von Bremzen and her partner travel to Italy, France, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey hoping to explore each country's national dish.

This really just didn't do it for me. I made it about 80% through before I gave up. Writing was often dry and uninteresting. I was expecting a bit more history and culture vs getting to know the people that Von Bremzen talked to while doing her research.

Through first-person narration and closer to a memoir style, Bremzen provides overviews of food history with stories and anecdotes from her international travels. While some of the stories are interesting, I wish there were some recipes provided.

Anya von Bremzen travels to different food capitals to investigate how dishes came to represent a nation. Anya visits with locals and uses her own research to determine the history of a dish and how it became known as representative to a locale. She learned that there were often a lot of complex issues involved, either in the myth making origins of a dish, or with multiple groups of people laying claim to the same dish, or in the political agendas involved. Overall, a blend of first-hand accounts mixed with historical research to present various dishes and cuisines. The historical background information Anya provided helped give much needed context.

National Dish is Anya Von Bremzen's ambitious project to write about the origins of national dishes in nations including such diverse destinations as France, Italy, Mexico, Japan, Spain and Turkey. Von Bremzen is the winner of three James Beard Awards and her descriptions of the dishes are vivid and transporting, but this isn't a book just for food history fans, those with an interest in travel writing will enjoy hearing about Von Bremzen's journeys.

She navigates the complexity of the chosen countries which are becoming progressively more diverse with new immigrants and increasing globalization of trends. She looks at not only how the recipes came to be, but also the cultural factors that shaped the feelings about the dishes. I thought it was interesting that with both pizza and ramen, their popularity elsewhere elevated them in their own homelands. An immigrant, herself, she also thinks about her own sense of home and the significance of dishes in her own life such as her Francophile mother's attempts to create her own version of pot-au-feu.

I found the personal aspects of the book enjoyable, but they do sometimes noticeably color her attitude towards places. It can always be a tricky balance when viewing other places, not to let one's own biases create blind spots so I did appreciate that she does acknowledge at times the perspective she is coming from. Her last poignant dish is a Ukrainian Borsch prepared in Queens, which now has even more significance. National Dish was intriguing for me, in that it not only taught me about the interesting history of some of my favorite dishes, but also gave me a greater appreciation in living in such a multicultural area of how people around the world have shaped not only what we eat, but our understanding of who we are.

I received an advanced copy of National Dish from Netgalley and the Publisher in order to provide an honest review.

What a delightful book! It honestly took me a bit to get into it cause the writing style was a bit different than what I was used to, but overall I liked the investigative tone the author used to dive into the national dishes of various countries and peeling back the myths and other facts that lead us to realize that certain dishes aren't that old. I really appreciated the usage of the local language woven throughout the book, though it did slow me down.

I was expecting it to have to recipes as well as photos but there’s none. It’s an interesting book about where and how some dishes become a national dish in search of “how cuisine became connected to place and identity”. It talks about Paris, Naples (Pizza, Pasta, Pomodoro), Tokyo (Ramen and Rice), Seville (Tapas), Oaxaca (Maize, Mole, Mezcal), Istanbul (Ottoman Potluck), I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

This book gave me such a longing for places I've never been and inspired a variety of my potential trips and restaurant visits

This was a fantastically fascinating read. In exquisite detail, Anya van Bremzen reveals a range of complexities and myths that can lie just beneath the surface of dishes and cuisines that are held up as emblematic of various nations. Some are cooked and enjoyed across large regions by multiple countries and peoples but are claimed by a particular nation as theirs and theirs alone. Others have spent literal centuries scorned in their home countries as low-class or regional dishes not worth considering before they received their current prominence. Meanwhile, a few are heavily influenced by the cuisines of outsiders, and a shocking amount were pushed to national elevation as part of heavy top-down affairs. Pardon the puns, but there’s just so much food for thought to mentally chew upon. Not only was I able to learn a tremendous amount of the several cuisines that von Bremzen selected, but it’s given me the foundations for a brand new critical eye for other national, and even regional cuisines that I’m already greatly appreciating.

For lovers of food history, or for those who just love to curl up with a great nonfiction read, “National Dish” is not a title to be missed!

It’s not often you run across a book about cooking and food that is truly a non-fiction exploration of food history, mores, and national identity. National Dish is all that and more.

Anya von Bremzen brings her own form of sarcastic, witty, and irreverent assessment of the foods considered part of the identity of certain countries. She begins in Paris, a city she really, really dislikes (and she let’s you know it), where she chases down the meaning and national importance of pot-au-feu by talking to giants in the French food industry and then by making her own.

This format continues through five other cities where she explores dishes intrinsic to the city, nation, and culture of those particular locations. I learned quite a bit about those cities/countries and their foods.

Serious foodies and those in the industry will enjoy this, but the average reader like me, who has an interest in food but not a deep knowledge of world cuisine, will end up skimming a lot of the text or will alternate between the text and the internet looking up names, dates, and dishes.

I loved this book as it was a combination of two of my favourite things: food and nonfiction trivia/information/lore.

I often wonder how foods got to be as popular as they are in countries: what we call CHINESE FOOD would never be served in China and even the food I got in Tokyo was different from the "authentic Japanese food: that I can get down the street. (DItto for "foreign foods" found at, say, Taco Bell! Popeye's CHicken may be the same, though ... lol!)

A great book for the foodies in your life or anyone who loves reading about other cultures and their impact on our tastebuds...I loved it enough to order a personal copy for myself!