The women who changed American cuisine forever

What is ‘immigrant food’? In America, the answer can be just about anything — from burritos to bibimbap to burgers. In a country shaped by immigrants, there is little else but immigrant food. But while some food cultures are firmly embedded in the American mainstream, well-mixed into the fabled ‘melting pot’, others are not. This is ever-changing: a few decades ago the ubiquity of sushi, for example, would have been unthink-able. Is this a good thing? It depends who you ask. Assimilation can bring belonging, but also compromise.

Greater knowledge and appreciation of different food cultures doesn’t just happen. People make it happen. Mayukh Sen’s Taste Makers examines the lives of seven immigrant women, all from different backgrounds, who contributed to the way America cooks and eats: Chao Yang Buwei from China, Elena Zelayeta from Mexico, Madeleine Kamman from France, Marcella Hazan from Italy, Julie Sahni from India, Najmieh Batmanglij from Iran and Norma Shirley from Jamaica.

Immigrant status, gender and an interest in food unite these cooks. But their stories, careers and goals are hugely diverse. Each chapter offers a detailed portrait of one woman. Take Chao Yang Buwei, who brought ‘stir-fry’ into the lexicon with her seminal 1945 book How to Cook and Eat in Chinese at a time when, as Sen puts it, ‘chop suey, a Chinese-American innovation, held tyrannical sway over the American imagination’. Sen considers Buwei’s food carefully and the space she made for less familiar Chinese dishes from regions other than Guangzhou, including Jiangnan’s pea starch noodles and Nanking’s cold saltwater duck.

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An examination of food and identity is nothing new, nor is a focus on immigrant food culture in America. Indeed the variety and pervasiveness of food from different countries is often used as a metonym for America’s multiculturalism.