Review of National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home by Anya von Bremzen

*National Dish* by Anya von Bremzen (2023). Published by Penguin Press.

As someone who studies food and dabbles in the history work in a graduate school setting, I first stumbled upon Anya von Bremzen’s work when I was still an undergraduate.

Back then I was studying business and was kind of miserable with my life and career choices, but when I picked up a copy of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, it started a completely new change within me.

I absolutely adored that book and how memoir could be combined with food writing, and it later inspired me to go deeper into food history. I was reading MFK Fisher and Laurie Colwin, and almost got a job at Whetstone after obsessively watching Chef’s Table on repeat for awhile.

And so years later, as a graduate student, I was so happy to open my Instagram DMs one day and find a message from Penguin Press. They wanted to send me a copy of Anya von Bremzen’s newest book—which I honestly had no idea existed considering how out of touch I’ve become with the publishing world, and I delightfully accepted.

Less than a week later, I had a copy of National Dish in my collection, and I delightfully devoured it over the course of a single week. I didn’t want to speed run the book; I took my time to savor the information it held, and that truly made me happy I went with this route.

Onwards with the review, shall we?

A dive into the concept of a national dish through the lens of multiple different countries.

For those familiar with food writing and memoir, Anya von Bremzen’s work has been a marriage between the two. National Dish is no different, but although some may back up at the memoir aspects, the bibliography at the back of the book shows she really did her research.

Throughout each chapter of the book. she’s constantly citing those in their respective fields and masters of information and culinary history, which shows that a lot of care was put into this. Who you cite is very important, and as someone currently in graduate school who’s worked with these materials, I recognized several of the names that kept coming up.

Each chapter—if you would call it that—is split into a national dish from a certain region. The very first chapter in France, where von Bremzen contemplates the mythologies around food and the concept of what a national dish is.

Her France chapter sets the tone for what’s to come later, as she deep dives into the history of French culinary identity, giving the backbones that emerged from the Renaissance and the 1600s—which is gruel. She balances this more history-focused aspect of the book by providing her own experiences with those in the country, and, as we see in not only the France chapter, but the Japanese one as well, she has a tendency to use immigrants as a lens.

This is interesting because the Muslim immigrants in France show pride for the gastronomic identity and defend it when she says something wrong, women laughing at her for her mistake, and the Uzbek cashier at a Japanese convenience store bemoans the existence of fast, easy food in Japan compared to the fragrant pilafs of his native Uzbekistan.

The inclusion of immigrants into these narratives is a critical one, especially as von Bremzen goes deep into the history of a country and its dishes. The Japan one was very fascinating to read from this angle, especially considering how homogenous Japan is considered to be.

This book isn’t intended to be the end-all be-all for the knowledge about a certain cuisine. As someone familiar with this kind of content, I could get that von Bremzen is only scratching the surface of complex issues when trying to tie it all together through the method of focusing on multiple different countries versus just one or a singular region.

I think this approach works in the context of who her audience is—non-academics—and that a lot of people can genuinely learn a lot of fascinating history in an accessible way through this book. The writing is easy on the eyes and it’s not written in a way that will make someone run screaming.

Overall Thoughts

I’d buy this book for any of my friends, or anyone who’s vaguely interested in food and its origins. Like I wrote before, this is only scraping the surface, but if you wanted to dive deeper, look at von Bremzen’s bibliography.

I sure did and ended up highlighting some authors and works I wanted to check out later to get more context into what von Bremzen is talking about. The memoir and food history blend works really well in this context, and I commend her for making such harder topics into something that feels seamless on the page.

I very much enjoyed my time reading this book, and even if I wasn’t sent a copy, I think I would’ve purchased one for myself upon knowing this existed out in the world. Go check it out if you seem even slightly interested—you’ll definitely learn something new in the process, like the mythology behind Margherita pizza or facts about Mexican mole and its existence.

I will say, my favorite chapters were the Italy (Naples), Japan, Istanbul, and Mexico ones. I would’ve liked to see more Latin American, but only so much could fit into this book I guess (and in Anya’s travel plans). Perhaps a sequel should be made?

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