Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love

by Simran Sethi

Overview

Award-winning journalist Simran Sethi explores the history and cultural importance of our most beloved tastes, paying homage to the ingredients that give us daily pleasure, while providing a thoughtful wake-up call to the homogenization that is threatening the diversity of our food supply.

Food is one of the greatest pleasures of human life. Our response to sweet, salty, bitter, or sour is deeply personal, combining our individual biological characteristics, personal preferences, and emotional connections. Bread, Wine, Chocolate illuminates not only what it means to recognize the importance of the foods we love, but also what it means to lose them. Award-winning journalist Simran Sethi reveals how the foods we enjoy are endangered by genetic erosion—a slow and steady loss of diversity in what we grow and eat. In America today, food often looks and tastes the same, whether at a San Francisco farmers market or at a Midwestern potluck. Shockingly, 95% of the world’s calories now come from only thirty species. Though supermarkets seem to be stocked with endless options, the differences between products are superficial, primarily in flavor and brand.

Sethi draws on interviews with scientists, farmers, chefs, vintners, beer brewers, coffee roasters and others with firsthand knowledge of our food to reveal the multiple and interconnected reasons for this loss, and its consequences for our health, traditions, and culture. She travels to Ethiopian coffee forests, British yeast culture labs, and Ecuadoran cocoa plantations collecting fascinating stories that will inspire readers to eat more consciously and purposefully, better understand familiar and new foods, and learn what it takes to save the tastes that connect us with the world around us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061581083
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/18/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	236,208
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Simran Sethi is a journalist and an associate at the University of Melbourne's Sustainable Society Institute and the former host of the PBS Quest series on science and sustainability. Her work has appeared on NBC Nightly News, PBS, Oprah, MSNBC, the History Channel, and NPR. She was the national environmental correspondent for NBC News, the anchor/writer of Sundance Channel's first dedicated environmental programming, and the host of the Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary A School in the Woods.

Table of Contents

Introduction

This Is a Book About … Love 1

What's At Stake

I Biodiversity 11

II Taste 27

Wine

I In the Glass 39

II On the Vine 61

III Tasting Wine 77

Chocolate

I The Baba 83

II The Bar 105

III Tasting Chocolate 129

Coffee

I The Cup 135

II The Wild 159

III Tasting Coffee 183

Beer

I The Spice 189

II The Soul 209

III Tasting Beer 227

Bread

I The Temple 235

II The Blessing 257

III Tasting Bread 273

Octopus

I Eight Tentacles 281

II Three Hearts 289

Appendices

I Methods of Conserving Agricultural Biodiversity 293

II Drivers of Change in Agricultural Biodiversity 295

Interviews 301

Thanks 305

Endnotes 309

Flavor Guides 343

Editorial Reviews

A stirring call to arms for anyone who loves food!

Andrea Reusing

A passionate plea to save and restore the things most precious about our food—its myriad flavors and its connection with nature. As global economic forces slowly squeeze the uniqueness out of what we eat, Simran Sethi explores the delicate culinary delights that offer hope, and deliciousness, for the future.

John McQuaid

[Simran Sethi] looks at ways in which monoculture and an increasingly standardized global diet put food systems in peril and leave crops vulnerable to blight and climate change.

Wall Street Journal

In Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, Sethi describes how, in recent years, environmental and economic forces have decreased biodiversity and threatened the existence of some of our favorite foods and beverages.

Boston Globe

Simran Sethi’s passionate book on food and biodiversity reminds us how healing food can be. The world is on our plate.

Deepak Chopra

Bread, wine, chocolate-three things many of us refuse to live without. But, as Simran Sethi tells us in her new book, Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, we might have to.

Acquired Taste

Our tables … are never really of, or for, one, as Sethi elegantly shows us.

NPR

A powerful reminder that we can eat in ways that don’t cause damage to the planet or its poorest people--and that can delight us, not just fill us up. Don’t read it on an empty stomach!

Bill McKibben

Should be required reading for culinary students, journalists, scholars and citizens who care about what they put into their mouths and what we’re doing to Mother Earth. Sethi is the kind of writer who can coat the bitter pill in honey and we all just swallow and say thank you.

Linda West Eckhardt

Read this wonderful book and you will become immersed in the intricate worlds of no less than six (delicious) foods and drinks. It is about our relationships with the life forms that sustain us—and how we might learn to approach those relationships with far more love, compassion, and good taste.

Naomi Klein

In a new book, author Simran Sethi argues that we are facing one of the most radical shifts in food ever.

Smithsonian Magazine

By turns explorer and explainer, Simran Sethi conducts a thoughtful and heartfelt tour of humanity’s most beloved tastes—and the threats that could extinguish them forever.

Michael Brune

Simran Sethi... argues convincingly about the deep importance of these humble foods that human beings have been imbibing for millennia.

Civil Eats

Bread, Wine, Chocolate is for anyone who has ever longed for a richer understanding of the foods you love, and for greater awareness of what it takes to bring them to you.

Kaelyn Riley

Bread, Wine, Chocolate is full of wonderfully geeky bits of science, including an excellent section on how memory and culture influences our perception of taste. But Sethi’s friendly, welcoming tone makes serious topics digestible and pleasurable.

Lisa Ko

Read this and you will understand that cuisine is how we kiss the world. There is more good news: it kisses back.

Paul Hawken

In this illuminating and impactful book, Simran Sethi sheds light on the dwindling diversity of our diets and our landscapes through the stories of our most beloved tastes. Bread, Wine, Chocolate calls on all of us to cherish—and thus preserve—the world’s endangered flavors.

Dan Barber

[Simran Sethi] looks at ways in which monoculture and an increasingly standardized global diet put food systems in peril and leave crops vulnerable to blight and climate change.” — Wall Street Journal

“In Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, Sethi describes how, in recent years, environmental and economic forces have decreased biodiversity and threatened the existence of some of our favorite foods and beverages.” — Boston Globe

“Our tables … are never really of, or for, one, as Sethi elegantly shows us.” — NPR

“Bread, wine, chocolate-three things many of us refuse to live without. But, as Simran Sethi tells us in her new book, Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, we might have to.” — Acquired Taste

“Read this wonderful book and you will become immersed in the intricate worlds of no less than six (delicious) foods and drinks. It is about our relationships with the life forms that sustain us—and how we might learn to approach those relationships with far more love, compassion, and good taste.” — Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

“Simran Sethi’s passionate book on food and biodiversity reminds us how healing food can be. The world is on our plate.” — Deepak Chopra, M.D.

“A powerful reminder that we can eat in ways that don’t cause damage to the planet or its poorest people—and that can delight us, not just fill us up. Don’t read it on an empty stomach!” — Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

“A passionate plea to save and restore the things most precious about our food—its myriad flavors and its connection with nature. As global economic forces slowly squeeze the uniqueness out of what we eat, Simran Sethi explores the delicate culinary delights that offer hope, and deliciousness, for the future.” — John McQuaid, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat

“A stirring call to arms for anyone who loves food!” — Andrea Reusing, James Beard award-winning chef and author of Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes

“Should be required reading for culinary students, journalists, scholars and citizens who care about what they put into their mouths and what we’re doing to Mother Earth. Sethi is the kind of writer who can coat the bitter pill in honey and we all just swallow and say thank you.” — Linda West Eckhardt, James Beard award-winning cookbook author, Editor/Founder of Everybody Eats News

“In this illuminating and impactful book, Simran Sethi sheds light on the dwindling diversity of our diets and our landscapes through the stories of our most beloved tastes. Bread, Wine, Chocolate calls on all of us to cherish—and thus preserve—the world’s endangered flavors.” — Dan Barber, chef/co-owner of Blue Hill and New York Times bestselling author of The Third Plate

“Read this and you will understand that cuisine is how we kiss the world. There is more good news: it kisses back.” — Paul Hawken, New York Times bestselling author of Natural Capitalism and Blessed Unrest

“By turns explorer and explainer, Simran Sethi conducts a thoughtful and heartfelt tour of humanity’s most beloved tastes—and the threats that could extinguish them forever.” — Michael Brune, executive director, Sierra Club

“Bread, Wine, Chocolate is for anyone who has ever longed for a richer understanding of the foods you love, and for greater awareness of what it takes to bring them to you.” — Kaelyn Riley, Experience Life Magazine

“In a new book, author Simran Sethi argues that we are facing one of the most radical shifts in food ever.” — Smithsonian Magazine

“[Sethi] writes with a deep understanding of pleasure and taste to convey her urgent message – we must make uncompromising, purposeful choices when it comes to what we eat before it’s too late!” — Alice Waters, chef, author and the proprietor of Chez Panisse

“...Simran Sethi’s new book Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, an excellent look at loss of biodiversity through something that we all know, and love, well: food.” — Paste Magazine

“Simran Sethi... argues convincingly about the deep importance of these humble foods that human beings have been imbibing for millennia.” — Civil Eats

“Bread, Wine, Chocolate is full of wonderfully geeky bits of science, including an excellent section on how memory and culture influences our perception of taste. But Sethi’s friendly, welcoming tone makes serious topics digestible and pleasurable.” — Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers

From the Publisher

[Simran Sethi] looks at ways in which monoculture and an increasingly standardized global diet put food systems in peril and leave crops vulnerable to blight and climate change.

Wall Street Journal

[Sethi] writes with a deep understanding of pleasure and taste to convey her urgent message – we must make uncompromising, purposeful choices when it comes to what we eat before it’s too late!

Alice Waters

...Simran Sethi’s new book Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, an excellent look at loss of biodiversity through something that we all know, and love, well: food.

Paste Magazine

Bread, Wine, Chocolate is full of wonderfully geeky bits of science, including an excellent section on how memory and culture influences our perception of taste. But Sethi’s friendly, welcoming tone makes serious topics digestible and pleasurable.

Associated Press Staff

Thérèse Plummer’s well-tempered performance complements this book’s important message about food and agricultural biodiversity. Her solemn tone conveys the trend toward standardization being set by the American food industry, which the author believes threatens the biodiversity of our food. Plummer’s casual warmth brings out the down-to-earth pleasures of foods—especially bread, wine, and chocolate—and emphasizes the need to appreciate diverse foods and flavors, and the humble places they come from. Creating individual voices and accents for various interviewees, Plummer captures the richness of the countries and cultures that embrace the three foods she focuses on. Overall, Plummer’s narration depicts the author’s belief that how we eat honors how we celebrate the world and our sense of taste. M.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile