"In any major city, immigrants run the food industry," says Pelin Keskin, host of Eater's new video series Cooking in America. "They're the reason we have such diverse eating habits today." From an Ethiopian coffee house to a halal butcher shop, Keskin spends each episode exploring another facet of "American food" — an amalgamation of cuisines as diverse as the United State's population, and with just as rich a history.
In the first episode, Keskin visits Damira Inatullaeva, an instructor with The League of Kitchens who moved to Brooklyn from Uzbekistan with her husband in 2013. The League of Kitchens is a cooking network in New York City helmed by immigrants, who hold cooking classes in their home kitchens to share recipes and techniques from their native cuisines with others; through her work with the organization, Inatullaeva has been able to honor and stay linked to Uzbekistan, and spark people's interest in it's varied and historical culinary culture.
