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Start giftingThe Taste of Conquest
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreIn this engaging, anecdotal history of food, world conquest, and desire, a chef-turned-journalist tells the story of three legendary cities—Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam—that transformed the globe in the quest for spice.
Written in a colorful style that will appeal to fans of Mark Kurlansky and Michael Pollan, this ambitious yet accessible book travels effortlessly from the Crusades to the present day. Michael Krondl explains that it was the desire for spices that got international trade up and running on a scale that had never occurred prior to that time. This explosive growth of the spice trade led to the successive rise—and fall—of Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam.
Krondl, a gifted food writer, travels to each of these great cities and begins his visit with a great meal. Gradually, he merges the menu he's enjoying with the city's colorful past, and readers are off on a gastronomical tour that teaches them not only about food and spice but also about history and commerce.
Michael Krondl has been a chef and food writer since 1985. He embarked on a writing career after graduating from culinary school and working in restaurants in New York, Italy, and Canada from 1979 until 1992. After these experiences, he decided that he preferred a culinary career outside of the kitchen. His columns, features, restaurant reviews, and recipe research have been published in American Health, New York Newsday, Good Food, Family Circle, Harper's Bazaar, Working Mother, The Creative Cook, and The Old Farmer's Almanac. Krondl has authored two books, The Great Little Pumpkin Cookbook and Around the American Table. He has taught at the New School Culinary Center in New York City since 1988 and has also worked in restaurant consulting. He is a graduate of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and received an Honours Certificate in Advanced Food Preparation from George Brown College.
Todd McLaren was involved in radio for more than twenty years in cities on both coasts, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He left broadcasting for a full-time career in voice-overs, where he has been heard on more than 5,000 TV and radio commercials, as well as TV promos; narrations for documentaries on such networks as A&E, Discovery, and the History Channel; and films, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit?