Anya Von Bremzen

"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"--

Evokes a mid-twentieth-century Soviet experience, as the author traces her upbringing by an anti-Soviet mother, her witness to the political events surrounding the empire's collapse, and her parallel food universes that included both simple and sumptuous fare.