Toronto, CA – February 9, 2026 – Acquired Tastes: The Lives and Recipes of Eight Culinary Ambassadors is a richly told new work of culinary storytelling that traces how certain beloved dishes and drinks have travelled across borders, centuries, and cultures, and carried not by mass migration or anonymous fashion, but by individual people. Written by James Chatto, W.L. Martin, and Joseph Sproule, the book brings together food writing, history, and biography to explore how recipes evolve as they move through time and place.
Spanning continents and eras, Acquired Tastes follows the remarkable journeys of eight specific recipes as they are introduced, adapted, and embraced in new cultural settings. Each chapter centres on an individual whose life, circumstances, and curiosity helped propel a dish beyond its origins, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes by accident.
Some of the book’s wide-ranging stories include:
Queen Bona Sforza’s introduction of Renaissance Italian lasagna into Poland
Fujianese merchant Chen Zhenlong’s smuggling of the sweet potato from Manila to China, reshaping food security
Concert pianist Jan Smeterlin’s flourless chocolate cake and its international following
U.S. Navy doctor Lucius W. Johnson’s role in popularizing the Cuban Daiquiri
And Benjamin Wenberg’s Lobster à la Newberg, tracing how a once-humble ingredient became a symbol of luxury through class, chance, and culinary reinvention
Through these lively stories (and the recipes themselves), Acquired Tastes reveals the deeply personal reasons food travels: famine relief, cultural exchange, political resistance, and the simple human urge to share something delicious.
“Recipes don’t just move because they’re good,” says Chatto. “They move because people move — through love, exile, ambition, necessity, or sheer curiosity. What fascinated us was how these dishes became vessels for much
larger human stories, and how food so often reveals history in ways that official records never can.”
Acquired Tastes is available March 17, 2026 wherever books are sold.
About the Authors
James Chatto is one of Canada’s most respected voices on food and drink, known for blending cultural insight with narrative storytelling across a career spanning four decades. His books include The Seducer’s Cookbook, The Man Who Ate Toronto, and A Matter of Taste, along with award-winning journalism for Toronto Life, LCBO Food & Drink, and publications across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Acquired Tastes marks his return to long-form book publishing with a fresh exploration of how recipes carry history, memory, and meaning across borders.
W.L. Martin studied art history and Near Eastern history and has worked as a teacher and school administrator. She is the author of A Kitchen in Corfu, a socio-culinary study of that island, and has several articles and books in development related to eighteenth-century French cuisine. Martin brings a unique perspective on cultural
history and food studies to this project.
Joseph Sproule is a historian of the early modern Baltic who completed his PhD at the University of Toronto and has taught there for over a decade. He has conducted research or academic studies in nine countries and published extensively in his field.