The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past

by Taras Grescoe Narrated by Tim Fannon

Overview

The world can't sustain the way we eat today. Whether it's ultra-processed oils, factoryfarmed meat, or monoculture wheat, industrial agriculture has increasingly dire consequences for the vibrancy of our plates, health, and planet. While some look to high tech solutions, like
lab-grown meat or transgenic produce, Taras Grescoe argues that the future of our food lies in the diversity of the past.

In The Lost Supper, Grescoe searches for the fascinating flavors, many forgotten or on the verge of extinction, that tell the stories of civilizations: “Aztec caviar” from a vanishing lake in Mexico; garum, the secret umami ingredient of Ancient Roman cuisine; acorn-fed feral pigs on one
of Georgia's barrier islands; and camas, a staple of Northwest Coast Indigenous Peoples. He chronicles a growing movement of archaeologists, farmers, and food producers who are unearthing and reviving the nourishing, delicious, and sustainable foods of the past-from Neolithic
sourdough and farmhouse cheese to wild olives and long-thought extinct plants-along with chefs and enthusiasts who are bringing history alive in their own kitchens.

A deep dive into the archaeology of taste and an impassioned manifesto for the future of food, The Lost Supper sets out a provocative case: in order to save ourselves, we need to think-and eat-much more like our ancestors did.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

An outstanding and crucial read amid this global emergency.”
—Quill & Quire, STARRED Review

“I cheered when I read this book, a series of lyrically descriptive essays telling of the author's interesting journeys to find world's forgotten foods. It is beautifully persuasive.”
—The Spectator

“[An] informative and engaging travelogue.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Fascinating… Grescoe is ambitious for solutions.”
—The Daily Telegraph

“...[the author’s] intrepid attempt to satiate ‘a wild impulse to experience the taste of ancient foods.’... sobering and hopeful in equal measure”
—Literary Review of Canada

"The Lost Supper... thrills with its escapist, aspirational appeal and ripped-from the-headlines documentary qualities. Surprising, often enthralling, facts about the past anchor Grescoe’s trips... The book excels at bridging these deep histories with the present, resulting in the immediacy of an epicurean and archaeological adventure... Covering a global culinary adventure, The Lost Supper melds food history with culinary derring-do."
—Foreword Reviews

"Grescoe sets out an illuminating analysis of “dwindling nutritional diversity,” what a more sustainable, nutritionally varied future might look like, and how food systems should change to get there... This is worth a look."
—Publishers Weekly

"In vivid and engaging prose, Grescoe makes the case that we shouldn’t blame farming for our ills, but rather we need to return to ancient techniques and breeds. By remembering the diversity of forgotten foods we once ate, he argues that we can rebuild the health and resilience we've lost. The Lost Supper weaves fascinating history with delightful culinary adventure and will entrance anyone who’s longed to taste the flavors of the past."
—Gina Rae La Cerva, author of Feasting Wild

"A treasure map that guides us to the delicious and nutritious foods that could very well save our species."
—Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish

"A fresh look at our wild roots, from the true meaning of paleo (eating termites) to the dawn of monoculture and the collapse of culinary (and agricultural) diversity."
—Matt Siegel, author of The Secret History of Food

"Prepare for intrigue and a deep dive into the history of food, the Anthropocene’s often unintended hand in shaping it, and what it means for the future. Grescoe’s vibrant writing and delectable storytelling bring deep understanding to how we eat."
—Ian Knauer, chef and author of The Farm

"A surprising, flavorsome tour of ancient cuisines demonstrating how the way forward involves looking back. This is not just another slick volume about cooking exotic food. . . Grescoe advises readers to look beyond the supermarket shelves, think before they buy, and take some culinary chances. 'For those who champion the Earth's dwindling nutritional diversity,' he concludes, 'the message is as simple as it is urgent: to save it, you’ve got to eat it.' Grescoe writes with color, energy, and humor, and the result is a fascinating book that leaves you hungry for more."
—Kirkus STARRED Review

“If you are suffering from apocalypse fatigue when reading about global food, The Lost Supper may be the sane, personable, and imaginative exploration of the possibilities of eating here and now that you need. Grescoe has a historian’s precision concerning the forces that imperil great foods and knows that the major lesson to be imparted to readers is how to surf change and keep community vital.”
—David S. Shields, author of The Culinarians and co-author of Slow Food USA's The Ark of Taste

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-06-07
A surprising, flavorsome tour of ancient cuisines demonstrating how the way forward involves looking back.

This is not just another slick volume about cooking exotic food. Montreal-based Grescoe, author of a number of award-winning books, including Straphanger and Bottomfeeder, loves food and is an adventurous diner, but he also has serious points to make. He is deeply concerned with the shrinking biodiversity of food production and the lack of real nutrition in processed foods. The answer, he believes, is to look at what earlier civilizations ate. In the course of his research, he visited ancient sites and met with farmers and Indigenous peoples who are resurrecting preindustrial methods of agriculture. He sampled axayacatl, an important insect in the Aztec diet. In Greece, he indulged in oil from very old olive trees, which leads to a discussion of the role that olives played in the spread of civilization. He tasted a salty fish sauce called garum, which has been around for centuries. On Vancouver Island, Grescoe tried the native camas, “a tuber that was widely consumed on the Northwest Coast before the Europeans came.” Along the way, the author learned that pigs were brought to the Americas by the conquistadors and that the first cheeses were made more than 7,000 years ago. Grescoe has tried to re-create some of the dishes he discovered in his own kitchen, with a surprising degree of success. His final effort involved making bread using ingredients and methods gleaned from the study of a Neolithic site in Turkey. Grescoe advises readers to look beyond the supermarket shelves, think before they buy, and take some culinary chances. “For those who champion the Earth’s dwindling nutritional diversity,” he concludes, “the message is as simple as it is urgent: to save it, you’ve got to eat it.”

Grescoe writes with color, energy, and humor, and the result is a fascinating book that leaves you hungry for more.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173367907
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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