"National Dish peels back the layers of myth, commercialization, and fetishization around the great world cuisines. In so doing, it brings us to a deep appreciation of how the country makes the food, and the food the country"-- Provided by publisher.

"Anya von Bremzen explores six of the world's most fascinating and iconic culinary cultures--France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey--brilliantly weaving cuisine, history, and politics into a work of scintillating connoisseurship and charm. We all have an idea in our heads about what French food is--or Italian, or Japanese, or Mexican, or... But where did those ideas come from? Who decides what makes a national food canon? Recipient of three James Beard awards, Anya von Bremzen has written definitive cookbooks on Russian, Spanish, and Latin American cuisines, as well as her internationally acclaimed memoir Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking. Now in National Dish, she sets out to investigate the truth behind the eternal cliché--"we are what we eat"--traveling to six storied food capitals, going high and low, from world-famous chefs to scholars to strangers in bars, in search of how cuisine became connected to place and identity" -- Provided by publisher.