Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them by Dan Saladino
Despite access to what feels like every type of cuisine globally, our modern diets are less varied than ever. Of more than 6,000 species of plants once consumed by humans, only nine remain staples today. Of those nine, rice, wheat and corn now make up over half of our calories. The world is currently at a crisis point, with one million plant and animal species threatened with extinction.
In his new book, Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), award-winning journalist Dan Saladino travels the world to document these vanishing foods and food cultures and explain why they are essential for our survival. As he journeys from Oaxaca, Mexico to Okinawa, Japan, and more remote corners of the world, Saladino highlights the stories of pioneering farmers, scientists, cooks, food producers, and indigenous communities preserving food traditions and fighting for their endangered foods.
“The endangered foods in this book are part of the bigger crisis unfolding across the planet: the loss of all kinds of biodiversity. Just as we are losing diversity in jungles and rainforests, we’re losing it in fields and farms. But what exactly does ‘biodiversity’ mean when applied to food?”
EYE-OPENING, GROUNDBREAKING CULINARY JOURNEY
In the answering of this question, Saladino divides his eye-opening work into 10 parts, focusing on wild foods, cereal, vegetables, meat, seafood, fruit, cheese, alcohol, stimulants (tea and coffee) and sweets. Eating To Extinction tells the tales of wild honey gathered by the Hadza people of East Africa, the revival of Australian Aboriginals’ staple murnong, Geechee red peas farmed in the Sea Islands of Georgia in the U.S., Mishavinë cheese made in the Accursed Mountains of Albania, Lambic beer in Belgium, criollo cacao grown in Cumanacoa, Venezuela, and many more must-taste and must-save foods.
The future of our planet depends on reclaiming genetic biodiversity before it is too late. As Saladino writes in the introduction, “You can help, too, by finding the foods that are endangered in your area, whether an apple variety or a local cheese. By eating these, you can help save them. Such foods represent much more than sustenance. They are history, identity, pleasure, culture, geography, genetics, science, creativity, and craft.”
Eating to Extinction is an astonishing journey through the past, present and future of food, a love letter to the diversity of global food cultures, and a work of great urgency and hope.
