Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food
“Edifying and entertaining.” — Foreword Reviews, starred review

Taste Canada Silver Award Winner and Finalist for the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Award

A rollicking exploration of the history and future of our favorite foods

When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future. Whether it’s chasing down the luscious butter of local Icelandic cattle or looking at the impacts of modern industrialized agriculture on the range of food varieties we can put in our shopping carts, Newman’s bright, intelligent gaze finds insight and humor at every turn.

Bracketing the chapters that look at the history of our relationship to specific foods, Lenore enlists her ecologist friend and fellow cook, Dan, in a series of “extinction dinners” designed to recreate meals of the past or to illustrate how we might be eating in the future. Part culinary romp, part environmental wake-up call, Lost Feast makes a critical contribution to our understanding of food security today. You will never look at what’s on your plate in quite the same way again.
1130920510
Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food
“Edifying and entertaining.” — Foreword Reviews, starred review

Taste Canada Silver Award Winner and Finalist for the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Award

A rollicking exploration of the history and future of our favorite foods

When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future. Whether it’s chasing down the luscious butter of local Icelandic cattle or looking at the impacts of modern industrialized agriculture on the range of food varieties we can put in our shopping carts, Newman’s bright, intelligent gaze finds insight and humor at every turn.

Bracketing the chapters that look at the history of our relationship to specific foods, Lenore enlists her ecologist friend and fellow cook, Dan, in a series of “extinction dinners” designed to recreate meals of the past or to illustrate how we might be eating in the future. Part culinary romp, part environmental wake-up call, Lost Feast makes a critical contribution to our understanding of food security today. You will never look at what’s on your plate in quite the same way again.
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Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food

Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food

by Lenore Newman
Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food

Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food

by Lenore Newman

Paperback(No Edition)

$21.95 
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Overview

“Edifying and entertaining.” — Foreword Reviews, starred review

Taste Canada Silver Award Winner and Finalist for the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Award

A rollicking exploration of the history and future of our favorite foods

When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future. Whether it’s chasing down the luscious butter of local Icelandic cattle or looking at the impacts of modern industrialized agriculture on the range of food varieties we can put in our shopping carts, Newman’s bright, intelligent gaze finds insight and humor at every turn.

Bracketing the chapters that look at the history of our relationship to specific foods, Lenore enlists her ecologist friend and fellow cook, Dan, in a series of “extinction dinners” designed to recreate meals of the past or to illustrate how we might be eating in the future. Part culinary romp, part environmental wake-up call, Lost Feast makes a critical contribution to our understanding of food security today. You will never look at what’s on your plate in quite the same way again.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781770416727
Publisher: ECW Press
Publication date: 04/05/2022
Edition description: No Edition
Pages: 312
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lenore Newman is the Canada Research Chair in Food Security and Environment at the University of the Fraser Valley. She is the author of the acclaimed Speaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey. She divides her time between Vancouver and Roberts Creek, British Columbia.

Read an Excerpt

To understand these culinary extinction threats, imagine a feast. It can be any feast: a Las Vegas buffet, a family holiday dinner, a South Pacific pit BBQ, or an Indonesian rijsttafel, the classic meal of many small dishes, served for special occasions. Imagine a meal with many dishes and more food than can possibly be eaten at once. There are two things in that feast, aside from a great deal of hidden labour. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of species of plants and animals, a sort of culinary menagerie. There is also a huge body of culinary knowledge, the accumulated knowledge of growing, harvesting, processing and preparing foods handed down and improved upon over generations. A feast is a bit like a book, but a tasty book we read through eating. Now imagine that the dishes start to disappear one by one. The raspberries for the waffles, the sage on the Thanksgiving turkey, the poi or the pisang goreng. Gone. Slowly the table becomes less interesting, less captivating, and as each species disappears, the accompanying cultural knowledge vanishes with it.

This is the paradox of the lost feast. Even as we enjoy a time in which food is cheaper, more diverse and more available than ever before, the spectre of extinction threatens to radically challenge how we eat. In fact, it is already happening.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Section 1 The Beginning of Endings 1

Chapter 1 Silphium 3

Chapter 2 Gods and Monsters 20

Chapter 3 Across the Seas of Grass 42

Section 2 Beef or Chicken? 59

Chapter 4 The Beast in the Jaktorów Forest 61

Chapter 5 Burger 2.0 80

Chapter 6 The Living Wind 96

Chapter 7 Engastration 117

Section 3 The Burning Library 139

Chapter 8 The Pear King 141

Chapter 9 Life Is Short, We Must Hurry 166

Chapter 10 The Scrambled Paradise 189

Section 4 The Twilight Garden 213

Chapter 11 Honey and Roses 215

Chapter 12 The Sex Life of Plants 230

Chapter 13 Wabi-Sabi 253

Suggested Readings 281

Index 287

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