National Dish

National Dish by Anya Von Bremzen (2023 ONE/Pushkin Press paperback 342pp)

About a decade ago I read Anya Von Bremzen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, a rather extraordinary mix of personal memoir, geopolitical history and cookbook. In telling the reader her family’s story she managed to explain the important place of food in the Soviet Union and how even after emigrating to the USA she craved the foods of her homeland.

Between then and now Von Bremzen has written several cookbooks and mainly worked on articles for magazines and newspapers. When I learnt she had a new book coming out I didn’t hesitate to pre-order a copy.

In National Dish the author travels to six different countries and the particular cities or regions famous for what has become their so-called national dish. In Paris she investigates the famous pot-au-feu, in Naples it’s the Pizza (and Pasta to a lesser extent). Flying to Japan she follows the trail of Ramen and Rice. In Seville, Spain Tapas is the focus while in the Oaxaca region of region of Mexico it’s the various Moles and the back-breaking labour required to produce them in the traditional manner. Next up is Istanbul and the origins and politics of what is essentially bar foods. The epilogue sees her back home in the US pondering the food implications of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine – where both sides claim Borsch as a national dish.

In each location she talks to the local experts and historians and soon learns that much of the official stories of each food’s origins and cultural relevance are completely invented or exaggerated. There is so much of national pride and identity mixed up in the stories and nobody really wants to learn or spread the truth. In Paris there has been layer upon layer of celebrity chefs each reinventing the ‘traditional’ dish in their own image. Tokyo lives in a romantic dream of its supposedly traditional foods when in reality much of its diet has been invented since the 19^th century – ramen noodles in the 1950s. The traditions of the Seville region were used by the Franco dictatorship in the 1970s to present the entire Spanish nation as a fun-filled cliched holiday destination. Oaxaca is promoted as a hipster destination for ‘real Mexican food’ and ‘the real Mexico’ while its women suffer trying to recreate the food preparations methods of yore and mega corporations exploit them all. And so, it goes in each location covered, probably not a massive revelation in each case but overall kind of sad and somewhat depressing perhaps.

In this book Von Bremzen has a technique of immersing the reader in the culture and language of the location, only then slowly explaining the meanings and history. I found this a little disconcerting in some of the chapters and found some sections initially hard to follow as a result. Probably just my own intellectual laziness and not a real criticism, I guess.

I didn’t find this book quite up to the standard of the author’s earlier work. It seems a more workman-like effort and didn’t really fire on all cylinders for me. However, if you enjoy reading about food, travel and learning about other cultures you could do much worse.