Introduction

I gave the culinary history and also the history of my country a place in my life, and gave it time to grow. It was like a seed I always had stored away in a box, but never wanted to plant. And now that I had planted it, I wanted it to grow slowly and form deep and strong roots. That way the flower that would grow out of the seed would grow a tall stem that could take the gusts of wind. The flower is this book, and the stem is the years of finding my way home and the research that followed once the publisher who said no to this book in 2016, because she sensed I wasn’t ready, said yes in 2020.