Synonym Magazine Issue 3

Issue Three digs into spices, and all the different stories they tell, from romance to survival to providing a sense of place. 116 pages, spiral bound, full color. Description from Synonym: We profile New York–based Van Van, a single-origin spice company based on the terroir of Vietnam. The couple behind the brand is not only sharing Vietnamese culture and cuisine, but also the vibrant flavors and quality of Vietnam’s herbs and spices as they are meant to be tasted. Our editor, Tien Nguyen, interviews writer and author Monique Truong about the use of salt as a literary device. The result is an extraordinarily beautiful take on an ordinary seasoning and the metaphors it can inspire. We also have some lovely essays, including one about how a bike ride–turned–foraging expedition in Texas transports the writer and private chef Umair Khakoo back home to Pakistan. Ruby Robina Saha writes about the colonialist history of nutmeg from Indonesia’s Banda Islands and how it destroyed a culture (an