Take any international trip, and the tourist-trap restaurants near the must-see landmarks will all be hawking the “national dish” you simply can’t miss: Greek souvlaki, Japanese ramen, Italian pasta, Mexican mole. Leaving aside the question of whether a restaurant with a laminated English menu could possibly serve good food, we must ask what makes a dish “national”—must it be an old recipe? A common one? Unique to that place? Anya von Bremzen poses these questions and more in her new book, National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home. Beginning in Paris with the 18th-century inauguration of modern French cuisine—and searching for the invention, or perhaps congelation, of pot-au-feu—von Bremzen travels across oceans and continents in search of what defines a country’s cuisine, unraveling notions of identity, nationhood, and politics in the process.

Go beyond the episode:

• Anya von Bremzen’s National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home
• In case you missed it, last week’s episode dealt with what might perhaps be called America’s quixotic national dish: the hot dog
• Dig in to our culinary history, and you’ll find a collection of immigrant women who changed the way American eats
• James Beard did, too
• Picture the food of the future—specifically that of the climate crisis—in this immersive dinner party episode  
• And who could forget the inner organs of beasts and fowls that spill across the pages of Ulysses?

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

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