The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice. By Michael Krondl. Ballantine Books.
The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trotting tale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, fickle fashion, and mouthwatering cuisine — in short, the very stuff of which our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, and anecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writer and food historian, tells the story of three legendary cities — Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam — and how their single-minded pursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet and set in motion the first great wave of globalization.






