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Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi

Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi is an American food documentary television series on Hulu in which the cookbook author, host, and executive producer Padma Lakshmi travels across the United States to explore the food cultures of immigrant and Indigenous communities and trace how they shaped what is called American food.1 The series premiered in 2020, ran for two seasons plus a Holiday Edition, and was announced in April 2025 as not returning for a third season.2

Key factDetail
FormatTravel and food documentary series, TV-14, starring, created, and executive produced by Padma Lakshmi1
RunSeason 1 premiered June 18, 2020, with 10 episodes; season 2 debuted in May 2023; a Holiday Edition aired in between3 • 4 • 5
Availability3 seasons and 24 episodes streaming on Hulu1
Awards2021 Critics Choice Real TV Award for Best Culinary Series; 2022 Critics Choice Real TV Award for Best Show Host; 2022 James Beard Foundation Award, Visual Media, Long Form; 2023 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special5 • 6
Production companiesPart2 Pictures and Delicious Entertainment6
ReceptionSeason 1 Metascore of 79 based on 6 critic reviews; the show holds 100% on Rotten Tomatoes3 • 2
AfterlifeThe cookbook Padma's All American: Tales, Travels, and Recipes from Taste the Nation and Beyond, publishing November 4, carries the show's material2

Spoilers

Premise and approach

Each episode follows Lakshmi to a different community, where she eats, cooks, and interviews the people who make the food. Hulu's synopsis describes the series as uncovering "the roots and relationship between our food, our humanity and our history," with stories that challenge notions of identity, belonging, and what it means to be American.1 Lakshmi herself frames the show as being about "what connects us as Americans and as human beings," and about the immigrants and Indigenous communities who shaped what is now known as American food.5

A personal vantage point. Lakshmi was born in India and moved to the United States as a child, and she introduces herself in each episode's opening as an immigrant.7 • 8 Critics noted that this life experience parallels those of the immigrants she meets on screen, distinguishing the series from earlier food travel shows.3 She has said she created the show after the 2016 election, frustrated by anti-immigrant rhetoric, as a way to bridge her advocacy work, including as an artist ambassador for the American Civil Liberties Union, and her work in television.7 She described the series as her "Trojan horse," using food to make viewers curious about America, its people, and its history, and said it was designed for viewers wary of immigration rather than for those who already agreed with her.7 • 9

Episodes and subjects

Season 1's ten episodes included Mexican food and border life in El Paso, Texas; Thai women in Las Vegas who married American soldiers; the Gullah Geechee community in South Carolina and the history of slavery in its foodways; German heritage in Milwaukee; and a "decolonized Thanksgiving" in southwestern Arizona.10 • 11 • 8 The first episode, "Burritos at the Border," examines El Paso, a city that was once part of Mexico.3 One episode features Lakshmi cooking Indian dishes in New York City and asking family and friends how they pass culture to the next generation.3

Season 2, which debuted in May 2023, took her to Afghan restaurants in Washington, D.C., where she ate Kabuli pulao with members of the Afghan American community and discussed helping evacuees after the Taliban's 2021 takeover of Kabul, and to Dearborn, Michigan, where she broke the Ramadan fast with Arab Americans; she also made piroshki with a queer Ukrainian American chef.4 • 12 • 13 Across its run the series examined cooking methods and ingredients from Peruvian, Japanese, German, Persian, Chinese, Thai, and Native American communities, among others.14

Style and critical reception

Reviewers placed the series in the lineage of food travel documentaries such as Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, David Chang's Ugly Delicious, and Marcus Samuelsson's No Passport Required, while noting what set it apart: a host who shares the immigrant experience of many of her subjects, and a willingness to engage directly with border policy, war, colonization, and slavery.8 • 3 The New York Times described its DIY, documentarian style as avoiding turning communities and their cuisines into objects of fascination, and noted that Lakshmi presents herself on the show with minimal hair and makeup, unlike her Top Chef persona.4 Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic called it "one of the most fascinating food series to emerge in recent years."3

Critical commentary was not uniformly positive. An Eater review argued that the series stops short of questioning American exceptionalism and the role of United States power in driving migration, and that its "breaking bread" framing can smooth over tensions of race, class, and empire.8 A scholarly analysis in Food, Culture & Society of Taste the Nation and No Passport Required found that the shows bring attention to the hardships of the migratory journey and migrants' contributions as tastemakers, but still resort to tropes of migrant deservingness, melting pot assimilation, and rugged individualism characteristic of earlier programming.15

Awards

The series won the 2021 Critics Choice Real TV Award for Best Culinary Series and the 2022 Critics Choice Real TV Award for Best Show Host, and won the 2022 James Beard Foundation Award for Visual Media, Long Form.5 In 2023 it was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special, with Lakshmi, David Shadrack Smith, and Rachel Tung as executive producers.6

End of the series and the cookbook

In April 2025 Lakshmi announced on Instagram that Taste the Nation would not return for a third season, and that the concept would continue as a cookbook, Padma's All American: Tales, Travels, and Recipes from Taste the Nation and Beyond, published by Penguin Random House on November 4.2 The book, which Lakshmi has described as a "love letter" to immigrants, offers home cooks over 100 recipes along with essays drawn from her experience producing the show and portraits of individuals who first appeared on it: a Gullah Geechee chef based in South Carolina, a Peruvian dance instructor in New Jersey, and someone who owns an Iranian restaurant in Los Angeles.7 She noted that the show had begun as a book idea, calling its end a full-circle moment, and wrote that "Creating Taste the Nation has been the joy of my professional life."2

References

  1. Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, Hulu series page
  2. Bettina Makalintal, "Padma Lakshmi's 'Taste the Nation' Isn't Coming Back, But It's Taking New Form," Eater, April 10, 2025
  3. Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi season 1 reviews, Metacritic
  4. Thessaly La Force, "In 'Taste the Nation', Padma Lakshmi's focus is on the food," The New York Times via The Indian Express, May 27, 2023
  5. TASTE THE NATION with Padma Lakshmi, official site
  6. Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi, Emmy Awards and Nominations, Television Academy
  7. "Padma Lakshmi's Latest Cookbook is a 'Love Letter' to Immigrants," TIME, November 3, 2025
  8. 'Taste the Nation' Review: An Ode to the Specter of the American Dream, Eater
  9. "Padma Lakshmi Has Thoughts on Celebrities Talking Politics," Marie Claire
  10. Ilana Kaplan, "Padma Lakshmi's New Show Brings People Together Through Food," Domino
  11. "Padma Lakshmi's Taste the Nation Deconstructs the Myth of 'American' Cuisine," Vanity Fair, June 2020
  12. "Padma Lakshmi Is Transforming How Americans Think About Food," TIME, December 2023
  13. "Hulu show 'Taste the Nation' visits Afghan restaurants in D.C.," Axios, May 12, 2023
  14. Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, Common Sense Media review
  15. "Making and breaking bread: the promises and pitfalls of migration discourse in food tour television," Food, Culture & Society, Vol. 27, No. 4

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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