Life Stories #52: Ann Mah & Anya von Bremzen

Ann Mah and Anya von Bremzen both combine personal history with an exploration of national cuisine. When the State Department reassigned Mah's husband from Paris to Baghdad, she used her time alone to explore the provinces, tracking down the most cherished regional dishes, an adventure she recounts in Mastering the Art of French Eating. Von Bremzen came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union as a young girl; in Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, she recounts her family's history, but also reflects on how the Soviet vision of food (and the reality its citizens had to deal with) shifted over the decades.