Lakshmi finds her own voice in ‘Taste the Nation’
From the moment when host Padma Lakshmi holds up a childhood photo of herself as “Taste the Nation” opens and says she immigrated to America when she was 4, it becomes clear that the show is more than travelogue or cooking show, although it’s those things, too.
The 10 episodes of “Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi,” which debuts Thursday on streaming service Hulu, dig into the question that Lakshmi asks in the introduction, “What exactly is American food, and what makes us American?”
It opens in the most apt location possible, given the state of borders and walls and immigration in America today: the border city of El Paso, Texas, once part of Mexico.
Lakshmi seeks out the best burritos in a city that loves them but also what this food means, as a comfort and as a symbol of colonization, against a backdrop of low-flying Border Patrol helicopters.
The second episode, “The All American Wiener,” lands Lakshmi in Milwaukee, cruising down Old World Third Street in the Oscar Mayer wienermobile and checking out the shop and the smokehouse in the belly of Usinger’s.
She talks and eats with Fritz Usinger, and observes that what was a German food has been assimilated along with the immigrants who brought it. The wiener ultimately becomes the hot dog, an American icon, while still connecting immigrants’ descendants to their heritage.
Between the historical bits and examinations of the present, Lakshmi thinks about the future, too — never more so than when she wonders about imparting her Indian heritage to her daughter and how to link the next generation to the past.
Other episodes explore places such as Las Vegas and its Thai population, San Francisco and what ChineseAmerican
food has meant and means now, and Gullah culture in South Carolina’s Low Country.
Lakshmi probably is best known as host of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” the harsh mistress who tells defeated contestants, “Please pack your knives and go.” Most of her lines on that show are scripted. “Taste the Nation” is Lakshmi freed.
Unscripted Padma, Padma in conversation, is cast in a new light. And it’s charming to see her care-ful-ly pronouncing nixtamalization after sampling the Mexican spirit sotol with a chef in El Paso.
The format itself doesn’t break new ground. It’s a familiar one that might remind people of Anthony Bourdain’s show on CNN, “Parts Unknown,” but an effective and engaging one: stylishly filmed with the host as narrator and in conversation with famous and everyday folks. Food becomes the gateway through which viewers come to know people and cultures.
It’s over food that deeper issues of identity and the American experience are laid bare.
Lakshmi here is more than the host; the show was her idea, and her experience of what it is to be an American is woven throughout.
As an immigrant herself, Lakshmi understands what it is to have a foot in each of two worlds. In “Taste the Nation,” she comes across as the singular, empathetic authority needed to shepherd such a show.
Contact dining critic Carol Deptolla at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or 414-2242841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.