Eight Flavors: How They Changed the Way Americans Eat
Sarah Lohman is a culinary historian and the author of the bestselling book Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. She focuses on the history of food to access the stories of diverse Americans. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as on The Cooking Channel and “All Things Considered.” Formerly the Curator of Food Programming at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, she has presented across the country: from the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the New York Public Library to The Culinary Historians of Southern California. Her current project, Endangered Eating: Exploring America’s Vanishing Cuisine will be released in January 2023.
Overview
Join author and food historian, Sarah Lohman, for a fascinating look at American food history and how eight flavors changed the way Americans eat. After tracing the stories of Black Pepper, Vanilla, Chili Powder, Curry, and Soy Sauce, we’ll take a deeper dive into the fascinating histories of Garlic, Monosodium Glutamate and Sriracha hot sauce. For instance, did you know that Garlic was originally used as a medicine to treat maladies as varied as tuberculosis and hemorrhoids? Today, the average American consumes two pounds of garlic per capita. MSG has a long history in traditional Japanese food, but Lohman will unveil how MSG ended up on American shores and why they eventually grew to fear it. And Sriracha is a cultural mashup that typifies American cuisine: based on a Thai sauce, it was created by a Vietnamese immigrant of Chinese descent — and it is made outside of Los Angeles with California-grown ingredients. Get your food questions answered and explore how these ingredients are as American as apple pie.