Flavors from Home

Recipes from Hungary, Vietnam, Bosnia, Bhutan, and more that “document the international language of all people―food and cooking” (Maggie Green, author of The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook).

Each year, the United States legally resettles refugees who have fled their homelands, driven out by violence or persecution. As they and their families struggle to adapt to a new culture, the kitchen often becomes one of the few places where they are able to return “home”—finding comfort in an unfamiliar land, retaining their customs, reconnecting with their past, and preserving a sense of identity.

In Flavors from Home, Aimee Zaring shares fascinating, moving stories of courage, perseverance, and self-reinvention from Kentucky’s resettled refugees. Each chapter features a different person or family and includes carefully selected recipes from places like Cuba, Iraq, Iran, and Somalia. These traditional dishes have nourished both body and soul for people like Huong “CoCo” Tran, who fled South Vietnam in 1975 when Communist troops invaded Saigon, or Kamala Pati Subedi, who was stripped of his citizenship and forced out of Bhutan because of political and religious persecution.

Whether shared at farmers’ markets, restaurants, community festivals, or simply among friends and neighbors, these dishes contribute to the ongoing evolution of American comfort food just as the refugees themselves are redefining what it means to be American. Featuring more than forty recipes from around the globe, Flavors from Home reaches across the table to explore the universal language of food.

“Scrumptious . . . In addition to accessible culinary instruction on an array of global recipes, readers receive the vivid life histories of the cooks themselves. What comes through most poignantly is the resilience and hope of these cooks―people who change the place they’ve come to as much as they are changed by it.” ―Neela Vaswani, author of You Have Given Me a Country