An ambitious, immersive and important book. Saladino has made a tour of the world's vanishing foods - its animals, vegetables, crops, and shown us why it matters so much that retaining diversity in the food chain matters so much. Disease can rampage through a single variety at horrifying speed, and if that variety is all we have, the consequences are obvious. Too many of our foodstuffs are in too few hands. The cultures that are injected into our cheeses worldwide to make them what they are are in the hands of some 5 suppliers. The cattle we breed are - worldwide - largely a single breed. Seeds worldwide are in the hands of just four corporations So many of the foods we rely on were once developed in response to local conditions - the soil and the climate. Now, most foods are grown as a a one-size-fits-all. Whereas foodstuffs used to be so different and varied from one country and region to the next, now the entire world derives 50 % of its calorie-intake from just three foods: wheat, corn and rice. Saladino shows us that besides this being so dangerous - an epidemic could wipe away a foodstuff completely, it's also impoverishing our diets, and the rich variety of local foods. He discusses globalisation, the crippling effects of war.
This engaging and readable books takes us with Dan Saladino as he visits hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, Bere barley growers in Orkney, German lentil growers, apple growers in Kazakhstan .... and so many more. Each adventure was full of interest, and left me with a desire to try the foods and drink he sampled. It also left me with a determination to do what I can to support the remaining foods being saved by passionate and committed producers. The most important book I'll read this year. ( )

This was my second attempt at reading this book. It just looked so loooong that I couldn't face it although I thought I might be interested in the actual content. So, I started in the middle with Stichleton cheese and worked my way out, reading at random whatever caught my fancy and ended up reading most of the book.

Who wouldn't be interested in the fact that we have many foods that are disappearing? The same arguments about animals becoming extinct apply to foods. Loss of diversity leads to greater dangers in a food being wiped out; lower diversity for wildlife and lower diversity for our gut microbiome. Often the people that continue with these foods are passionate about them or are part of a long tradition of making/growing them and when they die, so do the ways they know. This makes Saladino's book really important in that it highlights what these foods are.

Stichleton cheese has suffered because it is made with raw milk. Can you imagine the French refusing a cheese made with raw milk? Stilton can only be made with pasteurised milk to be called Stilton. Pasteurisation did save many, many people from tuberculosis amongst other things but in eradicating raw milk we also lost something else.

Perry was also interesting - a cider type drink made with pears. I used to live in Worcestershire, one of the counties that made Perry, and in my time there orchards disappeared at an alarming rate. Now Perry trees are few and far between and their location has to be kept a secret. It is a delicious drink, quite deceptive and why wouldn't the future of pears one day be dependent on some of the genes included in perry pears?

There used to be over 4000 varieties of potato, almost as many of corn, hundreds of varieties of apple and cheeses made where the sheep were grazing. Now we have one main type of potato - 2 or 3 if we are lucky - and half of the world's cheese made with bacteria and enzymes from one company. It seems we have forgotten what happened with the Irish famine where everyone grew the same potato so that when blight hit, it got every single plant. This food monoculture is a danger to the planet and to our health.

Saladino has taken on the role of alerting us to the plight of these foods but it is someone else's work to share with us how we can change this, what we can each do without it costing us the earth. ( )

This is quite a look at the decline of the diversity of the foods we eat and the drinks we drink. It is a complaint against conformity in our food supplies, against monoculture, big business, and standardization.

Besides it being ostensibly about food and agriculture, this also a travel book, in time and place. You will visit places you’ve never been before or ever gain access to. Sort of like Anthony Bourdain sitting down for a bowl of noodles in a Vietnamese greasy spoon with the President of the United States.

If I have one complaint it’s that author fails to acknowledge the utility of standardization in government policy.

While it sounds quaint and beautiful there being cheeses and alcoholic beverages made from unpasteurized milk or open vats of fermenting hops, there are reasons these standards developed: to protect people. Standards were not developed to rob people of choice.

We live in a litigious world, like it or not.

Also, people want cheap food. Grocers minimize their losses — and food waste — by sticking to known quantities. ( )

Do we all have at least some idea of where our food comes from and how those systems work? By late 2023, I would argue that almost all adults do (and this title was published at the start of the year). For that reason, I am less certain of the need for this narrative than the author is. It did go deep into the ancestral origins of agriculture, in some unique ways and in many parts of the world, all of which are genuinely interesting stories. But as a collection of multiple stories, it was harder for me to knit the anecdotes and histories together into a larger point. ( )

Whew. That was a slog despite it being directly up my alley. I did my undergrad in Sustainable Foods & Bioenergy Systems, this could have been a text in one of my classes on monocultures or biodiversity. But this was written for lay people, there's no scientific nomenclature here, and there's often anecdotes here and there. It just contains too much! The fate of many of these foods is the same, so to go through the process for dozens of foods is pretty grating by the end. It's incredibly well researched, but I think I'd just refer to someone interested in one of these foods to it's section, rather than recommending the entire text. ( )