Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America

As an ex=pat, I am amazed that the delivery in India is so quick and reasonable.

This is a short book about seven women who came to the USA, missed their country's food, so began cooking, writing cookbooks, teaching, and opened a few restaurants. They were the pioneers of Chinese, Italian, French, Mexican, Jamaican, Iranian, and Indian cooking in North America.Mr Sen is a James Beard award winning food writer, and for his youth, has an astonishing depth in these varied cultural cuisines. I commend him for bringing the lives of these women, most of whom were not professional chefs, to our attention.All these women, like most women who want to be chefs, had an uphill struggle in a difficult trade dominated by men. Despite having to keep a home, raise children, and learn a new language, they were still driven to succeed, or at least write their recipes down and get published.Julia Child has a small chapter devoted to place in popularizing French cooking in the USA. Despite being a celebrity cook (one of the first), her success came much easier. She was wealthy, had a husband whose profession allowed them to travel, and her quirky voice in her amateur TV series was beloved by many. However, she was no Madeleine Kamman who came from France, and there was definitely tension between these two.I bought this as a gift for a friend, but read it first. Although I am a professional chef myself, I had never heard of these women. I am better educated for it.

I wondered what it would be like to try to live in America as an immigrant. These strong women did so making opportunities. Most of them I had no idea who they were so it was nice to be introduced to them and their accomplishments. The writing was OK, too.

I couldn't get through this book. I love reading and food. But I couldn't finish this book. Not all that interesting and very tedious.