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On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta
A food writer travels the Silk Road, immersing herself in a moveable feast of foods and cultures and discovering some surprising truths about commitment, independence, and love.
Feasting her way through an Italian honeymoon, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. Who really invented the noodle? she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe—and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? With her new husband’s blessing, she set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean.
The journey takes Lin-Liu into the private kitchens where the headscarves come off and women not only knead and simmer but also confess and confide. The thin rounds of dough stuffed with meat that are dumplings in Beijing evolve into manti in Turkey—their tiny size the measure of a bride’s worth—and end as tortellini in Italy. And as she stirs and samples, listening to the women talk about their lives and longings, Lin-Liu gains a new appreciation of her own marriage, learning to savor the sweetness of love freely chosen.
Feasting her way through an Italian honeymoon, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. Who really invented the noodle? she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe—and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? With her new husband’s blessing, she set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean.
The journey takes Lin-Liu into the private kitchens where the headscarves come off and women not only knead and simmer but also confess and confide. The thin rounds of dough stuffed with meat that are dumplings in Beijing evolve into manti in Turkey—their tiny size the measure of a bride’s worth—and end as tortellini in Italy. And as she stirs and samples, listening to the women talk about their lives and longings, Lin-Liu gains a new appreciation of her own marriage, learning to savor the sweetness of love freely chosen.
388 pages, Hardcover
First published July 14, 2008
90 people are currently reading
2611 people want to read
About the author
Jen Lin-Liu
13 books50 followersJen Lin-Liu is the author of Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China and the founder of the cooking school Black Sesame Kitchen in Beijing. She was raised in southern California, graduated from Columbia University, and went to China in 2000 on a Fulbright fellowship. A food critic for Time Out Beijing and the coauthor of Frommer’s Beijing, she has also written for Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and Food & Wine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 274 reviews
March 11, 2017
3.5 stars, bumping it up to 4 largely out of spite, because wow, there are so many negative reviews of a very particular kind. A lot of folks don't like how often the author talks about her marriage. Or the fact that she spends a lot of time describing her struggles with her identity (as a woman, as a wife, as a Chinese-American living in China). Most of the top reviews here use the word "whining." And I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the third book I've read in a row by an Asian-American female journalist about her life abroad (after Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris and Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite) that inspired the same criticism.
I get it, it's a matter of taste how much we want the author to insert themselves in a nonfiction narrative, and I usually fall on the side of the more the better - I want to hear how the story got made, about the travel logistics and translation pitfalls, how the author met their subjects and got words of wisdom out of them for the book. I don't want the author to pretend they're a totally neutral party, coming in without their own individual and cultural lens on the subject. Maybe other folks just don't like that and prefer the story without the meta-story, and that's fine.
But I'm not sure how you expect an author to separate those aspects of an Asian culinary travelogue from her identity as a woman or as Chinese-American or, in this case, as a wife. She points it out herself near the beginning: she hears constant questions about the whereabouts of her husband throughout the journey, something missing from the writings of her favorite male travel authors. She travels through parts of the world with extremely rigid gender roles and is welcomed into the women's realm by virtue of her gender, and into the men's by virtue of her nationality and profession. She gets questions about her nationality and ethnicity - are you one of us or one of them? - along the journey, ones her white husband doesn't have to contend with.
And her subject is food. In particular, everyday cooking by families and restaurateurs, versus advanced gourmet stuff. Some of the parts I found particularly fascinating were her conversations in different countries about whose job cooking is at home versus in the workplace. And how traditions get passed down, which have been left behind, what hospitality looks like along the Silk Road. If you take gender roles and family roles out of that conversation, well, you're left with a list of tasty things, and how they were cooked and eaten.
Point being, this author doesn't have a neutral (read, white male) point of view, and in my opinion the book is better for it. Sure, the jokes fall flat sometimes, the transitions between talking about her subjects and herself aren't always smooth, but I hate seeing these totally legitimate worries about how one's individual identity, career path, independence, and love of cooking will change in the transition from woman to wife dismissed as "whining." Is her life more full of possibilities and her resume more interesting than most of ours? Yeah, but...what international food writer's isn't? (In contrast, see In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker's Odyssey - a similar read in a lot of ways, but not a single word in the reviews about how privileged this writer must be to be paid to follow a passion, and why must he talk so much about his amazing family and home kitchen...)
Yes, this is more of a rant than a review at this point. I enjoyed the book. I especially liked seeing the gradual cultural and culinary changes as the narrative moved slowly west - ingredients and methods disappear and reappear, attitudes towards food and cooking and hospitality change sometimes slowly, sometimes jarringly. Interpretations of American food - especially fast food - pop up here and there with their own weird significance to the local culture. The history of the noodle itself is a little too lost to history to satisfy a reader who's here for answers to the book's driving questions, but I recommend it if you enjoy reading about the experience of traveling and eating. Unless you can't eat gluten - in that case, stay far away.
I get it, it's a matter of taste how much we want the author to insert themselves in a nonfiction narrative, and I usually fall on the side of the more the better - I want to hear how the story got made, about the travel logistics and translation pitfalls, how the author met their subjects and got words of wisdom out of them for the book. I don't want the author to pretend they're a totally neutral party, coming in without their own individual and cultural lens on the subject. Maybe other folks just don't like that and prefer the story without the meta-story, and that's fine.
But I'm not sure how you expect an author to separate those aspects of an Asian culinary travelogue from her identity as a woman or as Chinese-American or, in this case, as a wife. She points it out herself near the beginning: she hears constant questions about the whereabouts of her husband throughout the journey, something missing from the writings of her favorite male travel authors. She travels through parts of the world with extremely rigid gender roles and is welcomed into the women's realm by virtue of her gender, and into the men's by virtue of her nationality and profession. She gets questions about her nationality and ethnicity - are you one of us or one of them? - along the journey, ones her white husband doesn't have to contend with.
And her subject is food. In particular, everyday cooking by families and restaurateurs, versus advanced gourmet stuff. Some of the parts I found particularly fascinating were her conversations in different countries about whose job cooking is at home versus in the workplace. And how traditions get passed down, which have been left behind, what hospitality looks like along the Silk Road. If you take gender roles and family roles out of that conversation, well, you're left with a list of tasty things, and how they were cooked and eaten.
Point being, this author doesn't have a neutral (read, white male) point of view, and in my opinion the book is better for it. Sure, the jokes fall flat sometimes, the transitions between talking about her subjects and herself aren't always smooth, but I hate seeing these totally legitimate worries about how one's individual identity, career path, independence, and love of cooking will change in the transition from woman to wife dismissed as "whining." Is her life more full of possibilities and her resume more interesting than most of ours? Yeah, but...what international food writer's isn't? (In contrast, see In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker's Odyssey - a similar read in a lot of ways, but not a single word in the reviews about how privileged this writer must be to be paid to follow a passion, and why must he talk so much about his amazing family and home kitchen...)
Yes, this is more of a rant than a review at this point. I enjoyed the book. I especially liked seeing the gradual cultural and culinary changes as the narrative moved slowly west - ingredients and methods disappear and reappear, attitudes towards food and cooking and hospitality change sometimes slowly, sometimes jarringly. Interpretations of American food - especially fast food - pop up here and there with their own weird significance to the local culture. The history of the noodle itself is a little too lost to history to satisfy a reader who's here for answers to the book's driving questions, but I recommend it if you enjoy reading about the experience of traveling and eating. Unless you can't eat gluten - in that case, stay far away.
July 27, 2014
I really wanted to like this. It combines two things I love: food writing and travel writing. Unfortunately it also including a fair amount of navel gazing on the author's part. - oh, marriage, what are you and what do you mean to me and to my career? oh, what is a wife? How can I be a wife and have a fabulous career as an author who gets to travel the world and eat? Maybe that last one is not fair, but it is the one that finally made me put the book down. Perhaps if I had finished I would find that she had reconciled herself to marriage, and perhaps now even sees how a good marriage can make a good life even better. I just couldn't take it anymore. I officially gave up.
August 27, 2013
It's hard to say whether I liked this book. I found Jen Lin-Liu, the memoirist, incredibly annoying, what with her constant angst about whether being married was going to crimp her style, require something of her (like basic consideration for her husband), or affect her independence. Anyone who is married is going to tell you that marriage does do all that, but that is kind of the point of it. I was also relatively unclear about what caused her to undertake the trip she records in the first place -- she says that she wants to travel the Silk Road to try to find the origin of noodles but it seemed to me that a lot of her impetus was the desire to get time to think about her identity.
Nonetheless, On the Noodle Road is a fairly compelling read. Lin-Liu's trip was epic, mostly by land, and full of descriptions of parts of the world with which I am not familiar (Western China, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey). For that alone I would recommend the book. She meets some really interesting characters and is an astute observer of social mores and conventions. She also describes food in ways that make you want to try what she is eating and gives recipes.
Nonetheless, On the Noodle Road is a fairly compelling read. Lin-Liu's trip was epic, mostly by land, and full of descriptions of parts of the world with which I am not familiar (Western China, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey). For that alone I would recommend the book. She meets some really interesting characters and is an astute observer of social mores and conventions. She also describes food in ways that make you want to try what she is eating and gives recipes.
November 7, 2021
I'm inclined to like this book, because:
1) It has recipes; and
2) I made one of the recipes (Pork Belly Sauce) for a couple of Chinese friends, and the wife of the couple got all dreamy-eyed and said it reminded her of her childhood.
What the book isn't is one of those insufferable tales of going to Provence or Tuscany or New Zealand and reinventing a blissful life over a plate of heavenly food and glass of perfect wine, surrounded by your new perfect, colorful friends. Although, actually, it kinda got that way at the end, when she finally fetched up in Naples and Bologna, Italy.
The author wrestled with many dilemmas, out loud and right there on the page, and this turned a lot of readers off. In fairness, though, how does one write a lighthearted and fun travel saga about a country in which women are not allowed out of doors without a male chaperone, or where they cannot choose their spouse, or cannot go to school? A good part of the middle of this book takes place in the highly repressive nations of Turkmenistan and Iran, and while she seeks out positive experiences there, it's hard to fault her for finding them oppressive.
Did we need quite so many reminders that marriage forces uncomfortable compromises? Probably not, but while some reviewers reference her 'constant whining,' I doubt if these introspective passages made up more than 5% to 10% of the text.
Not as fun as her first book, but I attribute that to the fact that growing up is less fun than being young, unattached and able to enjoy a high degree of freedom. Four stars is perhaps generous, but given the claptrap that this genre generally produces, this is still a cut above average.
1) It has recipes; and
2) I made one of the recipes (Pork Belly Sauce) for a couple of Chinese friends, and the wife of the couple got all dreamy-eyed and said it reminded her of her childhood.
What the book isn't is one of those insufferable tales of going to Provence or Tuscany or New Zealand and reinventing a blissful life over a plate of heavenly food and glass of perfect wine, surrounded by your new perfect, colorful friends. Although, actually, it kinda got that way at the end, when she finally fetched up in Naples and Bologna, Italy.
The author wrestled with many dilemmas, out loud and right there on the page, and this turned a lot of readers off. In fairness, though, how does one write a lighthearted and fun travel saga about a country in which women are not allowed out of doors without a male chaperone, or where they cannot choose their spouse, or cannot go to school? A good part of the middle of this book takes place in the highly repressive nations of Turkmenistan and Iran, and while she seeks out positive experiences there, it's hard to fault her for finding them oppressive.
Did we need quite so many reminders that marriage forces uncomfortable compromises? Probably not, but while some reviewers reference her 'constant whining,' I doubt if these introspective passages made up more than 5% to 10% of the text.
Not as fun as her first book, but I attribute that to the fact that growing up is less fun than being young, unattached and able to enjoy a high degree of freedom. Four stars is perhaps generous, but given the claptrap that this genre generally produces, this is still a cut above average.
June 17, 2014
I really wanted to give this book a higher rating because it combined my love of history and love of food but I couldn't get past the author. She came across as a "woe is me" writer who spent a good portion of the book questioning her relationship with her husband and complaining about how she was suppose to balance her life as a traveling food author, food school owner with her marriage.
August 21, 2013
Really 3.5 stars I suppose, but three would feel a bit ... unfair.
I wasn't sure I'd be able to get into the book at first, but the Chinese section proved interesting enough that I decided to plunge ahead to the end; the strength of that part lay in Jen's depiction of several various regions of the wheat-based northern part of the country, rather than concentrating on the Han northeast, each seeming a bit more "western" as she heads west. I didn't feel she really enjoyed Central Asia, or Iran for that matter, on the whole; perhaps because they weren't particularly noodle-based, to the extent that she had to outright hunt down the appearance of any noodles in Iran at all that weren't dry, pre-packaged ones. Still, the lives of families she befriended in those places made her time in the regions an enjoyable travel narrative. I found Turkey the strongest read (along with China), correlating with my own experiences there, and writings of the parts of the country I haven't visited. Highly subjective I realize, but Italy seemed largely an anti-climatic coasting (if you will) to the end, where she concludes that pasta developed separately in the east and west, rather being specifically "spread" from one end of the route to the other.
As a pet peeve, she confuses Sunni's and Shia's in the Iran section, causing me to slam down the book, cursing an "editor" who could collect a salary while letting that through. Book could've been a more solid four, if not a five, had I not been so consciously aware of what overachievers she and her husband appear to be. Not that such is bad in and of itself, but I had a tough time relating to her because of it. Perhaps a different way of putting it would be that she seemed slightly ... peeved when things weren't working out exactly as she'd expected.
Recommended, though I can understand why other reviewers felt it was dry (or "off") in places. It's quite well-written, and though I truly admire that our British friends have a strong tradition of travel writing, I appreciated it that the cultural references here are American.
I wasn't sure I'd be able to get into the book at first, but the Chinese section proved interesting enough that I decided to plunge ahead to the end; the strength of that part lay in Jen's depiction of several various regions of the wheat-based northern part of the country, rather than concentrating on the Han northeast, each seeming a bit more "western" as she heads west. I didn't feel she really enjoyed Central Asia, or Iran for that matter, on the whole; perhaps because they weren't particularly noodle-based, to the extent that she had to outright hunt down the appearance of any noodles in Iran at all that weren't dry, pre-packaged ones. Still, the lives of families she befriended in those places made her time in the regions an enjoyable travel narrative. I found Turkey the strongest read (along with China), correlating with my own experiences there, and writings of the parts of the country I haven't visited. Highly subjective I realize, but Italy seemed largely an anti-climatic coasting (if you will) to the end, where she concludes that pasta developed separately in the east and west, rather being specifically "spread" from one end of the route to the other.
As a pet peeve, she confuses Sunni's and Shia's in the Iran section, causing me to slam down the book, cursing an "editor" who could collect a salary while letting that through. Book could've been a more solid four, if not a five, had I not been so consciously aware of what overachievers she and her husband appear to be. Not that such is bad in and of itself, but I had a tough time relating to her because of it. Perhaps a different way of putting it would be that she seemed slightly ... peeved when things weren't working out exactly as she'd expected.
Recommended, though I can understand why other reviewers felt it was dry (or "off") in places. It's quite well-written, and though I truly admire that our British friends have a strong tradition of travel writing, I appreciated it that the cultural references here are American.
August 29, 2021
So, the thing about this book is that it's very much a personal memoir more than an actual exploration of the history of where noodles came from. If you want to read a book about travel and cooking and one woman's journey into figuring out her place in the world as a woman and a wife and straddling cultures, I think it's pretty worth it. If that's not what you think you're getting out of this book when you read it, you're probably going to be disappointed. But since I was reading it as a memoir, I did mostly enjoy it, if occasionally feel like the author was worrying for the sake of worrying. But that's a real emotion and it is/was her life and not mine. Glad I picked this up.
February 11, 2019
Excellent food travelogue from China to Italy in search of roots of noodle.
July 31, 2013
Warning: Don't read this book on an empty stomach, or if you're on Atkins, because you'll be craving carbohydrates and your stomach will probably be growling throughout the entire book.
Jen Lin-Liu was a journalist, food writer, and owner of a cooking school in Beijing. While on her honeymoon in Italy, as she marveled over the culinary delights she and her husband enjoyed, she started wondering about pasta. (And who wouldn't?) More specifically, she started wondering about pasta's provenance, given its popularity in so many different cultures.
Who invented the noodle? Was it, as legend and history have said, Marco Polo, who brought the noodle back to Italy from China during his global explorations? Or were mentions of noodle-like substances in the Talmud and Etruscan history, or supposed discoveries of ancient noodles evidence that pasta was enjoyed even earlier in history? Lin-Liu decided to set out on a culinary journey along the Silk Road to discover the origins of pasta.
Her journey takes her through small villages in China and Tibet, Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. She spends time in cooking schools, restaurants, tourist attractions, and even people's homes, learning secrets of rice, pasta, and dumpling dishes the world over, and marveling at their differences and their similarities with the food her cooking school teaches people about in China. But more than that, as she spends time with professional chefs and home cooks, wives and mothers, men and women, she learns a great deal about different cultures and how they view the role of women versus men, as well as the role of food in each of these societies.
At the same time, Lin-Liu, a newlywed, is forced to confront her own issues with her marriage. Spending most of her journey on her own, with her journalist husband elsewhere, she wonders whether this trip was good for her marriage, and what role she should play in their relationship after her travels. With food such a central part of her life, but not nearly such an obsession for her husband, are they doomed to fail?
Lin-Liu cites two points raised by food historian Charles Perry, which illustrated some of what she learned in her travels. "If a people eat much of a dish, this does not mean that they have eaten it forever, [and] if a people eat little of a dish...it does not follow that they never ate much of it."
As a huge pasta, noodle, and dumpling lover, I enjoyed reading about Lin-Liu's experiences, and the incredible (and sometimes nauseating) food she was able to eat and cook during her travels. But after a while, I stopped caring about the purpose of her mission (the issue of provenance seems to come and go throughout the book) and just focused on her conversations and her discoveries. She's an excellent writer and describes the things she ate and saw with terrific detail.
But if anything, the weak link in the book is Lin-Liu herself. She is fairly unflinching in writing about her own issues with her marriage and her role as a woman, which doesn't quite endear her to the reader. And when she recounts certain exchanges with her husband you definitely sympathize with him, not her. It takes a lot to write about yourself in an unflattering way.
This is a fascinating book, and the recipes that Lin-Liu includes are well worth the price. If you've ever dreamed of going on a worldwide food journey, but don't think it's something you can afford (financially or weight-wise), live vicariously through Jen Lin-Liu. You'll enjoy yourself, and be super hungry.
Jen Lin-Liu was a journalist, food writer, and owner of a cooking school in Beijing. While on her honeymoon in Italy, as she marveled over the culinary delights she and her husband enjoyed, she started wondering about pasta. (And who wouldn't?) More specifically, she started wondering about pasta's provenance, given its popularity in so many different cultures.
Who invented the noodle? Was it, as legend and history have said, Marco Polo, who brought the noodle back to Italy from China during his global explorations? Or were mentions of noodle-like substances in the Talmud and Etruscan history, or supposed discoveries of ancient noodles evidence that pasta was enjoyed even earlier in history? Lin-Liu decided to set out on a culinary journey along the Silk Road to discover the origins of pasta.
Her journey takes her through small villages in China and Tibet, Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. She spends time in cooking schools, restaurants, tourist attractions, and even people's homes, learning secrets of rice, pasta, and dumpling dishes the world over, and marveling at their differences and their similarities with the food her cooking school teaches people about in China. But more than that, as she spends time with professional chefs and home cooks, wives and mothers, men and women, she learns a great deal about different cultures and how they view the role of women versus men, as well as the role of food in each of these societies.
At the same time, Lin-Liu, a newlywed, is forced to confront her own issues with her marriage. Spending most of her journey on her own, with her journalist husband elsewhere, she wonders whether this trip was good for her marriage, and what role she should play in their relationship after her travels. With food such a central part of her life, but not nearly such an obsession for her husband, are they doomed to fail?
Lin-Liu cites two points raised by food historian Charles Perry, which illustrated some of what she learned in her travels. "If a people eat much of a dish, this does not mean that they have eaten it forever, [and] if a people eat little of a dish...it does not follow that they never ate much of it."
As a huge pasta, noodle, and dumpling lover, I enjoyed reading about Lin-Liu's experiences, and the incredible (and sometimes nauseating) food she was able to eat and cook during her travels. But after a while, I stopped caring about the purpose of her mission (the issue of provenance seems to come and go throughout the book) and just focused on her conversations and her discoveries. She's an excellent writer and describes the things she ate and saw with terrific detail.
But if anything, the weak link in the book is Lin-Liu herself. She is fairly unflinching in writing about her own issues with her marriage and her role as a woman, which doesn't quite endear her to the reader. And when she recounts certain exchanges with her husband you definitely sympathize with him, not her. It takes a lot to write about yourself in an unflattering way.
This is a fascinating book, and the recipes that Lin-Liu includes are well worth the price. If you've ever dreamed of going on a worldwide food journey, but don't think it's something you can afford (financially or weight-wise), live vicariously through Jen Lin-Liu. You'll enjoy yourself, and be super hungry.
July 1, 2013
Combining travelogue, history, cultural investigation, food diary, recipes, and memoir, On the Noodle Road is a layered treat of a book. Journalist and cooking school founder Jen Lin-Liu was inspired to travel the ancient Silk Road route from Beijing to Rome after being struck by similarities between Chinese and Italian pasta dishes. Common wisdom holds that Marco Polo brought the noodle from China back to Italy, but the evidence is shaky. Lin-Liu decided to investigate cooking styles along the Silk Road to see what she could learn about the long history of noodle cuisine.
Traveling sometimes with her new husband, sometimes alone, Lin-Liu visits and shares food preparations in home kitchens and restaurants, often in places far off the beaten path. She journeyed through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and the culturally distinct western provinces of China, including the disputed territory of Tibet. Cooking together turned out to be an interesting and intimate way to get to know people, especially the women she meets, and reading about her experiences is fascinating. Lin-Liu writes candidly about their lives, cultures, and family dynamics--and about how what she sees impacts her struggles to balance or blend the fiercely independent woman she always has been with her new married life.
If your experience is like mine, On the Noodle Road will make you want to take a food adventure yourself, but at least you'll be craving finely cooked meals made from scratch with fresh local produce, not junk food. Recipes are included in the book and more are on Lin-Liu website.
Traveling sometimes with her new husband, sometimes alone, Lin-Liu visits and shares food preparations in home kitchens and restaurants, often in places far off the beaten path. She journeyed through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and the culturally distinct western provinces of China, including the disputed territory of Tibet. Cooking together turned out to be an interesting and intimate way to get to know people, especially the women she meets, and reading about her experiences is fascinating. Lin-Liu writes candidly about their lives, cultures, and family dynamics--and about how what she sees impacts her struggles to balance or blend the fiercely independent woman she always has been with her new married life.
If your experience is like mine, On the Noodle Road will make you want to take a food adventure yourself, but at least you'll be craving finely cooked meals made from scratch with fresh local produce, not junk food. Recipes are included in the book and more are on Lin-Liu website.
November 1, 2019
As a pasta fanatic since I was old enough to quit eating strained peas, the title of this book grabbed me by the stomach and never let go.
Author Jen Lin-Liu decided to travel the Silk Road in search of the history of noodles. Along the way, she is welcomed into the kitchens of many, many women who open up in the privacy of their own kitchens to not only teach her about how they make and use noodles, but enlighten her about their lives, hopes, and dreams along the way.
Jen Lin-Liu knows of what she speaks as an owner of a cooking school in Beijing. On her honeymoon in Italy, she and her new husband went on a culinary adventure that really got her thinking about pasta and noodles. I'm Italian and I can tell you I obsess about pasta every single day :D so I understand this completely.
The true origins of pasta and noodles are rooted in many stories - mainly that Marco Polo brought the noodle to Italy after his adventures in China. But is that true? Where did pasta really originate? And what about ancient noodles that have been discovered the predate all of that?
Like noodles? Read this book. Like Italian food? Read this book. Like to eat in general? Read this book. What about travel - do you like travel? Read this book. Fascinated by other cultures? You know ... read this book.
Just read it.
Author Jen Lin-Liu decided to travel the Silk Road in search of the history of noodles. Along the way, she is welcomed into the kitchens of many, many women who open up in the privacy of their own kitchens to not only teach her about how they make and use noodles, but enlighten her about their lives, hopes, and dreams along the way.
Jen Lin-Liu knows of what she speaks as an owner of a cooking school in Beijing. On her honeymoon in Italy, she and her new husband went on a culinary adventure that really got her thinking about pasta and noodles. I'm Italian and I can tell you I obsess about pasta every single day :D so I understand this completely.
The true origins of pasta and noodles are rooted in many stories - mainly that Marco Polo brought the noodle to Italy after his adventures in China. But is that true? Where did pasta really originate? And what about ancient noodles that have been discovered the predate all of that?
Like noodles? Read this book. Like Italian food? Read this book. Like to eat in general? Read this book. What about travel - do you like travel? Read this book. Fascinated by other cultures? You know ... read this book.
Just read it.
March 9, 2019
Honestly, this book could have been so much better than it was. I love food, I love travel, but this gal.....I simply couldn't stand her.
Not only did I think her writing was lackluster, but her tone INFURIATED ME. She sounded so ungrateful and judgey for most of the trip and I just kept thinking "My God, you're doing something people only dream about." I get it, she's technically a food critic, but she was so snobby and condescending. Also she made stupid statements like "a panther shot in Africa"....there are no panthers in Africa...
I gave the book two stars because I like the themes (the progression of noodle literally and figuratively, and how women fit in to cooking traditions) but I felt the noodle focus was wrapped up entirely too nicely in a page, and the comments about women and how they are linked to food was accidental.
Overall, very disappointing.
Not only did I think her writing was lackluster, but her tone INFURIATED ME. She sounded so ungrateful and judgey for most of the trip and I just kept thinking "My God, you're doing something people only dream about." I get it, she's technically a food critic, but she was so snobby and condescending. Also she made stupid statements like "a panther shot in Africa"....there are no panthers in Africa...
I gave the book two stars because I like the themes (the progression of noodle literally and figuratively, and how women fit in to cooking traditions) but I felt the noodle focus was wrapped up entirely too nicely in a page, and the comments about women and how they are linked to food was accidental.
Overall, very disappointing.
August 30, 2013
It was OK for me. After awhile, the descriptions seemed to go on forever and I thought that she talked too much about her marriage. Perhaps it was not the right time for me to read this book. I love food and travel, but just read another travel book recently. Perhaps I needed a non-travel book in between this one. I'm still going to take a look at her first book and give it a shot.
September 19, 2013
Like an undercooked noodle, this book lacks substance. The author tried to write a book about food and cooking as well as a travelogue, and succeeded at neither. Had she met either goal well, we would have a very different reading experience. Unfortunately, my experience with this book is diluted by the failure of the author to achieve her goals.
Almost immediately, I knew I was in trouble when I read the third sentence in the book, "'That's like making me choose my favorite family member!' she balked." I had to wonder if there was an editor involved in this book. Not a good sign. The writing did not get better. On the same page as the above sentence, the author unexpectedly touts King Arthur's flour and her own website - I'm not sure why I found this so off-putting, maybe it shouldn’t have a place in a book like this. Perhaps I wasn't expecting her to so blatantly endorse products.
I heard about the book on NPR, and it sounded very interesting. As I opened the book, I had high hopes as I love pasta of every ilk whether it is Chinese dumplings or fettuccine in a garlic butter sauce, but I just couldn't find the love for this book.
Almost immediately, I knew I was in trouble when I read the third sentence in the book, "'That's like making me choose my favorite family member!' she balked." I had to wonder if there was an editor involved in this book. Not a good sign. The writing did not get better. On the same page as the above sentence, the author unexpectedly touts King Arthur's flour and her own website - I'm not sure why I found this so off-putting, maybe it shouldn’t have a place in a book like this. Perhaps I wasn't expecting her to so blatantly endorse products.
I heard about the book on NPR, and it sounded very interesting. As I opened the book, I had high hopes as I love pasta of every ilk whether it is Chinese dumplings or fettuccine in a garlic butter sauce, but I just couldn't find the love for this book.
March 3, 2014
"On the Noodle Road" is a travelogue of the Silk Road with a little too much personal introspection and not quite enough noodles. To be sure, there are sufficient recipes and descriptions of meals I will never experience. However there is too much repetition and not enough depth to the food cultures Jen Lin-Liu is trying to describe. Perhaps I am spoiled by Bourdain and Zimmerman, but how often does the author have to describe the ubiquity of yogurt or the pounding and rolling of pasta dough? Her personal journey of discovery regarding her marriage and lack of career vs. family direction also begin to grate early on (at least she doesn't whine too much about her ticking biological clock). On a positive note, she does bring to light some local dishes (not all pasta related) and cultural observations that make the book worthwhile.
July 3, 2024
Enjoyable food-focused travelogue. It prompted me to finally bump our local Western Chinese and Turkish restaurants to the top of our “to visit” list. Learning more about such foreign cultures’ meals, and their similarities to things I already enjoy, made me much more willing to branch out and try menu items I might not have tried otherwise. The biggest downside of this book: every time I sat down to read, it made me hungry. A good problem.
December 31, 2017
The second book by Jen Lin-Liu takes us along the ancient Silk Road as she attempts to discover the origin and path of pasta/noodles. The author is married now, has opened a cooking school in Beijing and spends part of her time in the US for her husband's career/education. She is struggling with being newly married and no longer independent, able to travel, or not, as she pleases. Her travels takes her through a culinary and cultural journey that is as much about societal issues and politics as it about food. It is the food that really kept me reading, even though I am a vegetarian and much of what she eats and cooks would not work for me, the writing is so good that I was seriously tempted to make an exception for some of her dishes.
June 25, 2013
The author is a Chinese-American, raised in California and who now owns a cooking school in Beijing. While at a dinner in Italy, she began to wonder about the "age-old question" on the origin of noodles. Did Marco Polo really introduce the noodle from China to Italy?
This work is a little cultural anthropology, a little cooking skills, a little travel guide, a little meditation on the role of women and feminism. It is a delightful, eclectic mix of all of the above. At the time of her trip, she had recently married, and that is part of the rumination on the role of women in society and feminism.
Her trip was by surface transportation (for the most part - there was one hiatus where she flew back to Beijing, and then flew back to where she left off). Some of the trip is by train and car, but she also did some hiking, and some of the penultimate legs were by boat (ferry). Her trip took her across China, through several of the "-stans" into Iran and Turkey, and then to Greece and Italy.
I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this book. Especially at home, food is the province of women. In some of the countries she visited the role of women is strictly circumscribed. There are many societal implications. Several of the people she cooked with and learned from are women who do it because it is expected, not because they enjoy it. (I find that sad, but then again, I like to cook.) I gained insight that I did not expect about several of the areas she visited.
I did not cook any of the recipes, and even though I usually give away ARCs when I get them, I will keep this one for a bit to try some of the recipes.
This work is a little cultural anthropology, a little cooking skills, a little travel guide, a little meditation on the role of women and feminism. It is a delightful, eclectic mix of all of the above. At the time of her trip, she had recently married, and that is part of the rumination on the role of women in society and feminism.
Her trip was by surface transportation (for the most part - there was one hiatus where she flew back to Beijing, and then flew back to where she left off). Some of the trip is by train and car, but she also did some hiking, and some of the penultimate legs were by boat (ferry). Her trip took her across China, through several of the "-stans" into Iran and Turkey, and then to Greece and Italy.
I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this book. Especially at home, food is the province of women. In some of the countries she visited the role of women is strictly circumscribed. There are many societal implications. Several of the people she cooked with and learned from are women who do it because it is expected, not because they enjoy it. (I find that sad, but then again, I like to cook.) I gained insight that I did not expect about several of the areas she visited.
I did not cook any of the recipes, and even though I usually give away ARCs when I get them, I will keep this one for a bit to try some of the recipes.
February 22, 2014
Jen Lin-Liu, a Chinese-American journalist, took a cooking class in Rome, and began wondering how noodles had originated. It has been disproven that Marco Polo brought them along the Silk Road from China but how had they ended up in Italy? She decides to make the journey herself to try to find out. She tastes and cooks her way westward through China, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and finally Italy, meeting many fascinating people and cultures.
Along the way she also wrestles with being newly-married and wonders how that will affect her career, her sense of independence and her own identity. Should she travel behind her husband as he pursues his career or continue to go off on her own pursuits? She observes how women are treated in many other cultures, some little more than slaves to their families, and realizes how lucky Western women are.
I found this book is best read slowly, section by section, and savored. It has a tendency to bog down in what can't help but seem to be a series of long, repetitive journeys otherwise. Each section ends with recipes for food she has learned to make; some sound well worth trying.
Along the way she also wrestles with being newly-married and wonders how that will affect her career, her sense of independence and her own identity. Should she travel behind her husband as he pursues his career or continue to go off on her own pursuits? She observes how women are treated in many other cultures, some little more than slaves to their families, and realizes how lucky Western women are.
I found this book is best read slowly, section by section, and savored. It has a tendency to bog down in what can't help but seem to be a series of long, repetitive journeys otherwise. Each section ends with recipes for food she has learned to make; some sound well worth trying.
October 15, 2013
Almost 400 pages about noodles got to be a bit much, but this book is still an enjoyable trip across a large part of the world. The author's strident feminism is somewhat blatant at times but can be forgiven, but I am glad I am not married to her and I am sure the feeling is returned! I no longer eat wheat/other grain products but enjoyed the read nevertheless. From Amazon: Feasting her way through an Italian honeymoon, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. Who really invented the noodle? she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe—and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? With her new husband’s blessing, she set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean.
November 26, 2016
Saw this on the shelves at the library and was expecting a history of noodles, or something of the sort. Instead, I got a memoir of a chick whining about her marriage.
February 9, 2023
This was moderately interesting, particularly the parts in the middle when she was in countries between China and Italy, whose cuisine I am not as familiar with. I also found somewhat interesting her adventures in accepting hospitality. I found less interesting her relationship with her husband because her self-reflection seemed shallow. But I try not to comment on real people's stories as they are entitled to tell their own stories as they see fit. So just be aware that this book is not just about food. 3.4 stars rounded down.
March 23, 2025
On the Noodle Road was a bit of a disappointment. Yeah, most food travel writers are men. And I suppose talking about women as cooks as well as how recipes travel could be an interesting angle. But Jen Lin-Liu just isn’t a great writer. She goes through some interesting countries - and retracing the Silk Road through Western China, Uzbekistan, Iran, Turkey is all kind of fun. But she does talk way too much about her marriage and also way too much about the US.
October 4, 2022
This was a fun, readable travelogue with loads of good eating. Ostensibly about 'where do noodles come from?' it was much more of a personal journey to understand self as a married person, journalist and cook. But with pasta!
April 28, 2023
3.5 stars.
I really enjoyed Lin-Liu's descriptions of her travels and of her food journey. I was excited to learn more about how noodles changed throughout her trip. What I didn't enjoy was how much time she spent talking about how she questioned her relationship. It didn't feel like it fit in with the main subject matter and was really repetitive.
I really enjoyed Lin-Liu's descriptions of her travels and of her food journey. I was excited to learn more about how noodles changed throughout her trip. What I didn't enjoy was how much time she spent talking about how she questioned her relationship. It didn't feel like it fit in with the main subject matter and was really repetitive.
October 4, 2024
This was a combination of travel and food writing, attempting to trace the origins of noodles across several countries. Some parts moved slowly, but it was a creative concept that kept my interest, and there are recipes included for every country’s chapter! 🍝
August 8, 2021
A good follow-up to Serve the People. Proper review to come.
August 30, 2022
Felt like I was traveling with her. Loved the stories of people and food and travel and family and community and history
June 21, 2024
Travels with noodles and other foods
This is the second time I read this book, the second time was even better. I so completely enjoyed this book and Jen Lin-Liu is a treasure and inspiration. I re-read this book because I am traveling to the Stan countries and want to read Jen’s perspective. I have to say that now I am inspired to travel to China in part to this book and Fushia Dunlop’s amazing “Invitation to a Banquet ”. Both books are happy eating through the printed word. Be forewarned you will want to eat the described foods while reading these books.
This is the second time I read this book, the second time was even better. I so completely enjoyed this book and Jen Lin-Liu is a treasure and inspiration. I re-read this book because I am traveling to the Stan countries and want to read Jen’s perspective. I have to say that now I am inspired to travel to China in part to this book and Fushia Dunlop’s amazing “Invitation to a Banquet ”. Both books are happy eating through the printed word. Be forewarned you will want to eat the described foods while reading these books.
August 14, 2021
An enjoyable read, if sometimes slow and meandering. I appreciated learning about the author's experiences in Central Asia in particular!
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