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the books of time

by Molly Young

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Citrus is a sexually positive gfinisher. All of our types of commercially grown citrus fruits derive from 3 ancestors (mandarin, grapefruit and citron) that were (and are) fertilized through each other’s pollen, a flexibility that brought us limes, oranges and grapefruits. Add to this gene-swapping feast a propensity for mutation, and you may end up with clementine, which a farmer in nineteenth-century Algeria saw develop on a branch of his tangerine tree, tasted, and probably thought, “We have a winner. “

For BBC food journalist Dan Saladin, the genetic chaos of citrus fruit completion contrasts with the homogeneity of (many of) our diets. Saladin does downplay the achievements of scientists and industrialists who, over the past century, have the world’s largest food source as part of the “green revolution,” but insists that the loss of diversity of the resulting crops and dependence on a handful of cattle breeds will leave us, if allowed to continue at full speed, ecologically and culturally helpless.

Almost as soon as the Green Revolution began, it was criticized as a short-term solution to a long-term problem, and Saladin’s plan is not to repeat those arguments. Instead, “Eat to Extinction” is a birthday party in the form of eclectic case studies. There’s an ode to a sniper seed collector in London, a microanalysis of Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” and a biopic of the influential Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, who pointed to the link between plant diversity and food security. (and that he starved to death in a Soviet criminal under Stalin’s regime).

But above all, Saladin needs to highlight the treasures we threaten to lose. In Venezuela, it floats under the reader’s nose a chocolate bar made of rare Creole. root. The concentrate is in the “landrace” foods, which adapt to thrive in the fast stalls and are passed down from generation to generation. In the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland, Saladin encounters barley that bends and does not break with the strong winds of the region. and thrives in sandy and alkaline soils. In an Anatolian village, try Kavilca wheat, a cereal that Neolithic farmers first domesticated. fusion liquid.

Saladin demonstrates that a trace of a reader’s sustained attention passes through his stomach. Insisting on local and individual stories is also a way to counter the macabre pessimism that can take hold of a user when faced with more than 350 pages of evidence about our ongoing ecological crisis. The e-book is explicitly and passionately pedagogical, but opts for the carrot at the expense of the stick. Look at all those earthly wonders! Saladin cries. Let them perish!

Take, for example, murnong, a root once used by hunter-gatherers in Australia’s western desert, before nineteenth-century settlers introduced an attack on abundant tubers. First came the sheep, which excavated thousands of kilometers of land. invasive plant species, which have supplanted the local murnong. Finally, in 1859, rabbits arrived in Australia to finish the work. Recent efforts to revive the succulent and nutritious root have emerged through indigenous network gardens.

But reviving a nearly extinct plant is only the first step. As local foods disappear, culinary traditions dissolve with them. A few hundred years ago, a traveler would possibly have noticed that the loaves were becoming noticeably flatter as he traveled north through Europe. Climates were more suitable for cereals with a high gluten content, resulting in fluffier bread. The colder, darker climates of the north were more favorable for cereals such as rye and oats, which were found on flatbreads, baked biscuits, and bannocks, “fluffy. “, circular flatbreads cooked on the fire. ” Innovations, such as chemical fertilizers, have made it imaginable to grow trendy wheats in climates that in the past were not suitable for the task. Why keep classic cooking strategies when it’s reasonable and simple to buy slightly fluffy bread almost anywhere??

What is true for cereal crops is also true for livestock. Saladin visits a hjallur in the Faroe Islands, a hut with wooden slatted “walls” designed to allow winds to enter, where sheep carcasses hang in the fermentation stages. This approach was evolved out of necessity. With no trees on the island and therefore no firewood, the early inhabitants of the Faroe Islands simply did not keep the meat smoked or boiling salt water to turn it into salt. A hjallur ingeniously captured the salt where he lived: in the gusts of sea air. When Saladin flavors a piece of fermented sheep, he detects “just a touch” of rot. “For us, it’s a wonderful feeling,” one resident told him. “It’s a twisted taste but a smart taste. “

As the Faroese lamb shows, what provides resilience to food does not necessarily equate to what is palatable to the taste buds of the masses. Tribes in northeastern India enjoy memang narang, an intensely sour wild orange rich in bitter-tasting compounds that protects the plant from pests but can easily repel a consumer accustomed to the sweet sun of navel oranges.

What Saladin discovers in his adventures are other people who have a deep relationship with his food. It is not decadence or preciousness that we can associate with a word like “greedy,” but a form of reverence. And yet, his e-book is also a form of black tourism, with a destination towering over each and every edible miracle. That Saladin is able to channel the euphoria of sipping pear cider that smells like “autumn jungle” or savoring an ink qizha cake in the West Bank while highlighting the precariousness of those foods makes it an e-book that is haunting and charming.

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