Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods by Sarah Lohman

Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods Reviews

• 
  Molly

  This book was GREAT!
  
  Each chapter reviews a food or farming method in America that is in danger of extinction: Coachella Valley dates, Hawaiian Legacy sugarcane, Navajo Churro sheep, Choctaw file powder, Carolina African Runner peanuts, heirloom cider apples, Manoomin Anshinaabe wild rice, Buckeye chickens, reefnet fishing, and Texas Longhorn cattle. I was specifically happy to see a chapter on the African Runner peanut after reading Michael Twitty's The Food Gene a couple of months ago.
  
  Lohman brings us an engaging history of each food (and farming method), showing us how prominent these foods used to be in the past, and what exactly led to them becoming endangered. Spoiler alert: a lot of these foods are now endangered due to the US government's treatment of native people across the nation and the demands of capitalism. I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to US history, so this book was also really informative to me in that regard.
  
  In exploring the history of these foods, Endangered Eating highlights the importance of shopping small and local when possible, knowing where your food comes from, and the effect commercialized farming has had on biodiversity in the United States. I was familiar with these topics already, but learning about the extent to which it has happened and the danger of extinction these foods still face today still blew my mind a little.
  
  I enjoyed this book so much that I also bought a copy of Lohman's Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine and I am really looking forward to digging into it!
  
  I highly recommend this book if you like learning about food, history, or both!
• 
  Sierra Hess

  I've cried in the club multiple times reading this book. We've lost so much food and culture and history just from capitalism and racism and imperial tendency of colonizers to ruin everything they touch. Ark of Taste and Slow Foods are working to bring back these lost foods, but even then there are so many barriers to getting these foods back into the hands of the people who cultivated them - like native Hawaiian sugarcane and Carolina Runner Peanuts that can only be bought by wealthy restaurant owners when it was Black women who popularized and thrived off the treats they made with the peanuts, because they cost too much money to produce - especially when people can get away with a cheaper lackluster brand.
  
  And also every time they talked about plants and animals that just seemed to stubbornly hold on despite it all, deep in old groves or frozen in the freezer of community elders, I wanted to keep crying the club. Food is so important, and its so important to keeping community and culture alive and thriving and loved.
• 
  Ava

  so informative! sarah describes and recounts pieces of history and stories in an engaging way, makes me appreciate ag and food even more
• 
  Kristin

  What a fun read! Lots of history interwoven with mouth-watering recipes from little known/disappearing ingredients.
• 
  Rachael

  I did not expect to thoroughly enjoy this book as much as I did. Such a fun and unique non-fiction book.
  
  Each section takes you on a journey exploring a different endangered food; you'll learn the history, meaning, uses, and culture surrounding each one. Well written, heartwarming individuals peppered throughout; I finished this book feeling inspired and encouraged to seek out many of these foods and research Ark of Taste to find others near me.
  
  Highly recommend! Before I'd finished my library copy I purchased my own copy; this is a book that earned a coveted spot on my small bookcase.
• 
  Geoffrey

  (Note: I received an advanced reader copy courtesy of NetGalley)
  
  A wonderfully interesting read! In each section, Lohman focuses on a specific harvested crop, raised animal breed, fish (ing method) in danger of dying out, and covers them through a combination of detailed history, her own personal encounters with the people reviving and sustaining these food traditions, and relevant recipes. Not only did I enjoy learning about these selected endangered food ingredients, nearly all of which were new to me, but I particularly appreciated how Lohman doesn’t hold back on the reality that the majority of them come from indigenous communities. Far from it, she goes full tilt with and provides as much information as possible on the various colonization factors that have pushed these foods to the brink of extinction in the very first place. Every single chapter proved to be a whole new unique and jam-packed miniature education, and I was quite happy to devour each and every one of them (pun fully and shamelessly intended).
  
  Overall, it's a simply excellent spotlight on heirloom foods - not only a great lesson on the array of diverse ingredients out there across America, but also does excellent work raising awareness of what's in danger of potentially being lost. This is a book I'd be happy to recommend to those who enjoy great micro-histories or food writing, and also those who just enjoy a unique nonfiction read.
• 
  Lucy Batson

  In her second book, Sarah Lohman travels the U.S., this time concentrating on foods that are at risk of disappearing (and one that already almost has vanished), giving us a close look at the communities that cultivate them, and why they are at risk. She doesn't shy away from delving into the factors that opposed indigenous growers/crops (virtually the case with every chapter), and if you liked Lohman's Eight Flavors, you're going to like this as well.
• 
  Beth Cato

  I received an advance copy via NetGalley.
  
  Slow Foods International has complied a catalog of important regional foods and food-production procedures that are endangered around the world. Culinary historian Sarah Lohman explores select items from that list, traveling around America to find out the real history of the food and how it's being kept alive today.
  
  The trip is absolutely fascinating. Her tone is personable, the subject matter immersive. She's frank about how things such as climate change, colonialism, and capitalism have impacted which foods are popular and which ones die off.
  
  In California's Coachella Valley, she examines how dates came to the state, how it was advertised using Arabic fantasy and biblical motifs, and how the industry gets by today. In Hawaii, she visited modern farms that continue to grow sugar cane, and discusses how canes came to Hawaii and how the sugar industry has changed through white settlement to only recently cease, and how people are trying to perpetuate older varieties of sugar cane.
  
  She roams Navajo lands to butcher Navajo-Churro sheep and meets the Dine who raise and respect the animals who mean much to their people. Among the Lummi in Puget Sound, she sees what traditional reef net fishing is like and how Indigenous people are continuing the fight, legally and culturally, to catch salmon. In the Upper Midwest, she joins tribal members as they harvest manoomin, often branded as wild rice, and shines a light on environmental shifts in the region.
  
  Apple cider has waned in popularity and prevalence over the centuries as religious and cultural norms have shifted, and today people are making a concerted effort to rediscover "lost apples" across America. The Choctaw people introduced sassafras powder to the Creoles of Louisiana, and today very few people continue the old ways of creating file powder for use in dishes such as gumbo. Free Black women sold groundnut cakes on the streets of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 19th century and into the 20th, and now people are trying to bring back heirloom peanuts such as Carolina Runner.
  
  This is a book that will make you think. Past and perpetuated injustices will make you angry--but the way that people are trying to preserve foods, preserve their history and culture, will also make you grateful. Also: this is a book that will make you HUNGRY. Ultimately, the tale is one that encourages conservation so that these foods and their methods can continue to be eaten, enjoyed, and respected.
• 
  Jessica

  I was excited to read this book especially after reading the Introduction about the author's involvement with Slow Food. I wasn't familiar with the Ark of Taste aspect of Slow Food but it's basically a catalog of ingredients that are in danger of extinction and worthy of being preserved. There are over 5,000 foods on the Ark of Taste list and in this book Lohman decides to look at 8 that are in the United States. This premise sounded really interesting and I liked her previous book Eight Flavors. But, it fell really flat for me. The chapters are extremely long and detailed with just WAY too much history. You need to know the history to understand how these foods came to America or were used/eaten historically but I don't need 10 pages about one aspect of that history. The tipping point for me was the chapter about Hawaiian sugarcane. Today in Hawaii there are several distilleries that are growing heirloom varieties for liquor. The author (who is white) had a problem with white distillery owners growing heirloom sugarcane without a Native Hawaiian running the business. So, no non-Native people can run a business in Hawaii? Would she rather these varieties go extinct instead of a white person keeping them going and profiting from it? Shouldn't a Native person write this book then? Where do we draw the lines? I understand white people have historically profited from all kinds of Indigenous people all over the world but that doesn't mean that today for something to be preserved white people can't be involved in it. The end of that chapter just really rubbed me the wrong way. I already wasn't enjoying the super long, detailed chapters and after that I decided to quit reading this one. I wouldn't recommend this one.
• 
  Jenna

  4.5/5 stars
  
  Lohman's Endangered Eating is a deep dive into the histories of a few ingredients catalogued in the Ark of Taste - a list of important regional and cultural foods at risk of being lost (hence endangered). Lohman travels across the U.S, from fields of heirloom sugarcane in Hawaii to patches of wild rice in the wetlands of the Upper Midwest, to learn about the past, present, and attempts to secure a future for these at risk ingredients.
  
  This was a truly fascinating read. Lohman's selection of Ark of Taste ingredients from all corners of the U.S. brings the reader on a journey that links dark American histories of colonialism, genocide, slavery, and environmental destruction to our relationship with food today. Despite the tragedy intertwined with the histories of many of the ingredients, Lohman also highlights the hope and strength of the people fighting to preserve these cultural foods and the brighter futures they push towards. It was especially impactful to read this around Thanksgiving - a holiday that centers a history of violence towards Native Americans and our current relationship with food and feasting.
  
  This is definitely a book to read while you have easy access to a laptop or phone - I was constantly looking up topics mentioned by Lohman. I wanted to see the rainbow colors of the heirloom sugar cane, check if any Ark of Taste apples were growing in farms near me (they are!), and see the shipping cost of blonde dates after reading Lohman's tantalizing description.
  
  I knew I would be interested in this book's topic, but Lohman's research and writing blew me away and I have already been recommending this book to friends and family. The heirloom apple chapter is particularly exceptional (rediscovering apples thought to be lost to time?!) and I highly recommend at least reading that section for a taste (get it?) of Endangered Eating.
• 
  Rai

  Very interesting food history of many things I hadn't heard of before, and plants I never thought would have heirloom varieties. I really loved the attention given to the ways that colonization both contributes to the development of new foods and cultures, and how it directly causes the near or total eradication of traditional foods. I liked meeting the people working to preserve these rare foods, while the author also acknowledged that many of the indigenous and enslaved people who contributed to the food's cultivation don't have access to these preservation efforts. This is an inherent flaw in preserving rare foods by turning them into a commodity. The author's narration was upbeat and really captured her passion for the topic.
• 
  Broken Lifeboat

  The author uses the Ark of Taste database of rare and extinct foods from America's history to create this travelogue.
  
  The book lacks a consistent unified theme or reasons on why she even chose these specific experiences over others. Less a micro history than a well-cited but overly long travel blog.
  
  And maybe it's just the e version but zero pictures of any of the plants or practices described???
  
  Loved the concept but this book is probably most enjoyable for foodies and gourmands. I got a few bucket list items but mostly through becoming aware of the Ark of Taste while reading Endangered Eating
• 
  Chris Brook

  Hard not to be fascinated by the stories around rare and quickly disappearing foods. Picked up a similar sounding book, Eating to Extinction, a few years ago but only made it a few chapters in. Found this pretty engaging. Great collection of essays involving foods that are slowly fading in popularity, including Coachella dates, Carolina runner peanuts, sustainably caught reefnet caught salmon. Lohman goes to all these locations and meets the people keeping these traditions alive. Some occasionally veer into the historical record but there are some great stories here.
• 
  Haley

  Certainly made me want to be more mindful about checking out the local food scene when I travel.
  
  The narrator would have benefitted from some training in reading aloud. Quickly sounded sing-song-y.
• 
  Nico

  A very cool road trip across the US, that serves as a wonderful combo of accurate history, ingredients found in The Ark of Taste and Lohman's engaging personality as she illuminates how interwoven food is with understanding ourselves.
• 
  Tara L. Campbell

  Informative and eye opening. The first-hand account of participating in the ways the threatened foods and/or processes is great: you gain a sense of awe and clarity. For example, I had no idea about the wild rice cultivars before reading this and now I want to check out the wider options. Overall, a fascinating read with a great selection of US based foods to explore.
• 
  Megan

  This was an interesting concept and I enjoyed learning about these "endangered" foods, but I often found my attention wandering. Lacks a driving narrative, but gave me lots of bucket lists foods and experiences.
  
  My favorite was probably the first section covering the history of Southern California's date growing culture. I also enjoyed the quest for Harrison apples and Newark Cider. But I also found the history of Hawaii's sugar cane, the exploitation of Hawaiian land and workers by the dynastic white missionary families, and the eventual overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy/government and forced statehood fascinating. Oh, and the short history of the Buckeye chicken developed by an independent and determined farm wife. Actually, the wild rice harvesting was pretty interesting too!
  
  So, really, I enjoyed a lot of this information -- it just wasn't always the most riveting presentation.
  
  Probably the least interesting sections to me were the Churro sheep (descriptions of butchering makes me sad even though I'm a meat-eater), the Sockeye Salmon (I struggled to envision the reefnet fishing method), and the file powder (I don't know what this looks like or tastes like).
• 
  TrishTalksBooks

  I love to read about sustainability and I’m an avid vegetable gardener, so Endangered Eating was just the book for me. It’s a deep dive into some of the lost foods of North America, and the processes by which people have harvested and processed them. It’s like a love letter to slow foods and agricultural arcana, with a naturally occurring dose of sustainability education.
  
  For this book, Lohman spent a year travelling around the US following the seasonal patterns of several almost-lost foods and harvesting techniques. Her exploration has its roots in the organisation Slow Foods International, founded in 1989. One of its founding principles is to prevent the “disappearance of local food traditions and cultures.” A key initiative is the Ark of Taste, a catalogue of foods and food-processes that are endangered, with a goal to increase their production and improve biodiversity. A natural byproduct is the bolstering of small-scale production systems. As the book shows, this is often linked to Indigenous ways of eating and relating to food.
  
  Lohman chose eight foods or processes to document: California’s Coachella valley dates; heirloom sugarcane in Hawaii; Navajo-Churro lamb in the Navajo Nation; the reefnet fishing technique for pink salmon in the Pacific Northwest; manoomin wild rice in the Midwest; rare cider apples in New York; Cajun cuisine’s file powder in Louisiana; and the Carolina African Runner peanut in South Carolina.
  
  What I loved about the book was that Lohman told us not only the current story of each food or technique, but also married it to the history of that region or cultural group: This brought up some tensions! Does it matter who champions an endangered food? Often it’s a settler culture rather than an Indigenous community that revives a technique. Kudos to Lohman: she shows different points of view and generally allows the reader to think deeply about it and come to their own conclusion. As with many things in life, there’s usually not a black and white answer.
  
  While every chapter kept me invested, I was taken with three in particular.
  
  The Navajo-Churro lamb: I found this fascinating, probably because I’m not a meat eater, and I have to expand my comfort level to hear about animal slaughter. That said, I have come to appreciate the more humane and thoughtful use of animals for food that some cultures take.
  
  Reefnet fishing for pink salmon in the Pacific Northwest: I eat fish and try to make choices for more sustainable types of salmon. Pink salmon is often seen as less desirable but may be more sustainable. I love the idea of this less harmful salmon harvesting technique that minimises species loss via bycatch.
  
  Manoomin wild rice in the Midwest: I have a thing for wonderful grains, and hearing the stories of how the Anishinaabe folk “knock” the grains into canoes then gather and sell them during the wild rice season was so cool. It taught me about wetlands, and how our modern world destroys them.
  
  This was an inspiring book that made me ponder our food and how we harvest it in a more longitudinal way. We can glean wisdom moving forward as the climate changes by appreciating local foods, continuing with traditional methods and maintaining respect for the land and the animals that we share our planet with.
  
  I enjoyed the author's narration and would recommend this as a great audiobook choice. Thanks to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for an advanced copy of the audiobook!
• 
  Chira

  3.5 that I'll round up because there's a lot good here and the issues I have with it are mostly structural and organization (I think it could've benefited a lot from a more thorough flow edit)
  
  This one grew on me; each section focuses on a specific food and how it got its start, how it fell out of common use, and what is being done to use it and conserve it now, so depending on your interests each will hold a different appeal. The sections are organized roughly by timing as Lohman travels the nation to be a part of either harvesting or food-specific festivals as they are taking place, which I'm not sure is the best method - certainly, some stories are much more impactful and tie more strongly to what seems to be the overall message of food and food-related processes tied to peoples and cultures and cuisine, particularly of preserving food for its flavor and taste, rather than capitalistic reasons like yield or transportability.
  
  In a lot of aspects, it's fascinating to learn about so many different varieties of food that might be familiar on a larger scale, but we really have no idea the depth and breath of varieties that truly exist and that we're missing out on. That it is worth embracing regional differences and varietals rather than expecting a supermarket standard. A lot of the stories have similar notes, a constant refrain in different keys - people living off of the land, tying the foods they could grow and access to their cultures and their cuisine, until the US government decided they wanted the land or areas for their own purposes, thinking they could do it "better". Instead of celebrating ingredients for their differences, it became a profit game and a "correct" way of meeting demand until the ingredient became endangered, or thought extinct.
  
  On that point, the book brushes up against the issue that while a lot of these ingredients on the Ark of Taste, heirloom ingredients deemed worth saving, have a long history with indigenous cultures, the ways they are being preserved and the peoples doing the preserving and the ways of creating awareness and demand are often outside of those cultures, aimed at people of means (read: not affordable for people from the communities connected to the ingredients culturally), and put into the hands of chefs at "farm-to-table", "slow food" type restaurants, which are again, not typically chefs with a connection to the cuisine the ingredients are typically used in. But capitalistic systems don't want to invest in heirloom ingredients with low yield, certainly not in ways that make them widely available. How do we remedy that? It's food for thought.
• 
  Angie

  Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an Advanced Listener Copy - pub date 10/24/2023. I am not usually an audiobook fan because they just don't sit as well with my brain but I could NOT resist getting my hands on this book any which way I can. To be honest, the fact that Sarah Lohman narrates her own book works in its favor, too, when it comes to my brain processing. :) You immediately trust the Voice talking at you because it's Sarah Lohman and you know she knows this stuff inside and out... And she does. Literally. The book is full of tidbits - both historical and culinary, both personal and anecdotal. It is divided up neatly into specific foods that are deemed at risk and have been stowed onto the Ark of Taste by Slow Food Internation so you feel like you are really and truly getting to know each food before you move onto the next. Total food travel through time and space!
  
  I really enjoyed the reverence Lohman brought to each chapter and food and process. She took the time to explore and explain the factual history, the dry stuff, but also the anecdotal history and the cultural meanings behind the food for the original consumers. She also did not shy away from admitting if she went in blind or with pre-conceived notions and definitely did not avoid the messy parts of history. Many of the foods, after all, originated with and from the lifestyles and cultures of native peoples and we all know how natives fared when colonizers/settlers came flooding in. Systematic food stripping or slaughters proved just another tool in the box to bring the original inhabitants of a land to heel. Just another day at the office. Lohman's voice echoes with the sadness of the tales but also with awe at the determination of the people protecting their own heritage in food. She also went a step further and pointed out that, while the Ark of Taste and Slow Food International were doing amazing work, there was also a certain flaw to their mission - to bring back these heritage items and get them into the hands of chefs and make them desireable (often premium) items. In other words, are these heritage foods going back to their original consumers or are they just being ingested into the culinary capitalism world... and, if they aren't going further, is it still worth pursuing? The answer - yes, but we can still keep doing better.
  
  My only complaint with the book is a pretty obvious one when you think about it. Recipes are a lot harder to follow when they are read to you than when they are on a page you can look at. Whoops. Otherwise, excellent work!
• 
  Angie

  Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an Advanced Listener Copy - pub date 10/24/2023. I am not usually an audiobook fan because they just don't sit as well with my brain but I could NOT resist getting my hands on this book any which way I can. To be honest, the fact that Sarah Lohman narrates her own book works in its favor, too, when it comes to my brain processing. :) You immediately trust the Voice talking at you because it's Sarah Lohman and you know she knows this stuff inside and out... And she does. Literally. The book is full of tidbits - both historical and culinary, both personal and anecdotal. It is divided up neatly into specific foods that are deemed at risk and have been stowed onto the Ark of Taste by Slow Food Internation so you feel like you are really and truly getting to know each food before you move onto the next. Total food travel through time and space!
  
  I really enjoyed the reverence Lohman brought to each chapter and food and process. She took the time to explore and explain the factual history, the dry stuff, but also the anecdotal history and the cultural meanings behind the food for the original consumers. She also did not shy away from admitting if she went in blind or with pre-conceived notions and definitely did not avoid the messy parts of history. Many of the foods, after all, originated with and from the lifestyles and cultures of native peoples and we all know how natives fared when colonizers/settlers came flooding in. Systematic food stripping or slaughters proved just another tool in the box to bring the original inhabitants of a land to heel. Just another day at the office. Lohman's voice echoes with the sadness of the tales but also with awe at the determination of the people protecting their own heritage in food. She also went a step further and pointed out that, while the Ark of Taste and Slow Food International were doing amazing work, there was also a certain flaw to their mission - to bring back these heritage items and get them into the hands of chefs and make them desireable (often premium) items. In other words, are these heritage foods going back to their original consumers or are they just being ingested into the culinary capitalism world... and, if they aren't going further, is it still worth pursuing? The answer - yes, but we can still keep doing better.
  
  My only complaint with the book is a pretty obvious one when you think about it. Recipes are a lot harder to follow when they are read to you than when they are on a page you can look at. Whoops. Otherwise, excellent work!
• 
  Book Club of One

  A journey through a sampling of America's Ark of Taste, Sarah Lohman's Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods presents a travelogue of tasting and micro histories of eight foods at the brink of extinction. To eat them is to help save them, and Lohman learns many a skill taking part or observing the catching, butchering, harvesting or preparations of the featured foods.
  
  The book begins with an explanation of the title, "What is endangered eating?"defining terms as well as Lohman's journey with the Slow Food Movement and the Ark of Taste ("a living catalog of delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction"). Lohman began this project prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as is made clear in the text. For each of the eight foods detailed here, Lohman shares both her first hand experiences with preparing the food, eating it and the origins and development of the food along with how its existence became precarious. Lohman relied upon both traditional research methods in archives and libraries, but also interviewed many of the present day practitioners. Each chapter also includes at least two recipes. Foods covered are Coachella Valley Dates, Hawaiian Legacy Sugarcane, Dibé Navajo-Churro Sheep, Sxwo'le Straits Salish Reefnet Fishing, Manoomin Anishinaabe Wild Rice, Heirloom Cider Apples, Kombo Hakshish Choctaw Filé Powder and Carolina African Runner Peanuts.
  
  It is in the food history's that Lohman becomes truly expansive. The foodways represent cultural change, commercialization and the racial or genocidal history of America. Each of the foods has a common path or narrative. All of them were stable and relied upon, some with specific peaks in popularity or wide acceptance before something occurred to place barriers in their usage and they fell to the fringes or were practically disappeared. In their resurgence or less well known continued usage, was fueled by food movements or the interest of the curious or food historians and scientists. It is the barriers that are most telling in this history,especially those tied into the history of American expansion, almost always to the detriment of the indigenous peoples through land loss, forced relocation or broken treaties. This history comes up for most of the foods. All of it to show, as is demonstrated in many other books, what and how we eat matters.
  
  A thoughtful expansive food history tied to both the present, past and future. Beyond just the materials referenced, the book also includes sections for further reading. Recommended for anyone interested in food, recipes or history.
  
  I received a free digital version of this EBook via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
• 
  Shari

  Slow Food International has created the Ark of Taste--a list of foods that are in danger of becoming extinct and should be preserved. There are more than 5000 foods on the list worldwide, 350 of them from the US. In this book, Sarah Lohman sets out to learn more about a few of these foods, travelling to different parts of the country to talk to the people trying to keep them alive. She goes to southern California for a deep dive into dates, Hawai'i for lessons in all things sugarcane, the Navajo Nation, northern Washington, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and the Gulf Coast to learn about the cultural significance of churro sheep, reefnet salmon fishing, mannomin (real wild rice), and file powder (made from dried and pounded sassafras leaves) respectively; to New York and New Jersey to sample cider apples, and finally to the South Carolina low country to discover Carolina African runner peanuts.
  
  This is a wonderful book--each food has a fascinating story that Lohman tells in an engaging and highly readable way. She includes so much information not only about the food, but also about the history of the food in each place, the people for whom it is important, how it fits into the culture, how it is grown, harvested, used and how it tastes. She includes her own experiences harvesting and eating different foods and talks to people who are immersed in each food culture. She does this without getting bogged down in dry prose. It is clear that she has a keen sense of curiosity and interest in this topic and that shines through on every page. Her enthusiasm and respect for the people she is working with are evident and make the book that much stronger.
  
  I loved this book and if the author ever decided to write another book about more of the foods on the Ark of Taste list, I would certainly read that, too! I cannot recommend this book highly enough. 5 stars.
  
  I received a digital copy of this book in exzchange for a review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author.
• 
  Poppy Marlowe

  Synopsis (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review.)
  *********************************************************
  A culinary historian’s investigation of the American food traditions in danger of being lost, and how to save them.
  
  We may think of American cuisine as ever-expanding, but Slow Food USA curates a growing online catalogue of ingredients in danger of extinction. Featuring heirloom cider apples, wild rice, and more, this list provides the impetus for food historian Sarah Lohman to travel across America seeking these rare foods. With vibrant prose and a hands-on approach, Lohman illuminates why we need to preserve these largely Indigenous culinary customs that were nearly eradicated due to colonization.
  
  She travels into the heart the Navajo Nation, where butchering a Navajo-Churro lamb is the first step in the creation of flavorful blood sausages; and to Lummi Island in northwest Washington, where we meet those who are working hard to keep up a traditional, sustainable method of salmon fishing.
  
  Those drawn into this world of highly localized foods will learn how to support the farmers, shepherds, fishers, and other producers by seeking out their products, supporting community organizations, and sharing the stories of these cherished foods.
  
  Decidedly not a cookbook, it will be filed amongst them on our shelves thanks to Mr. Dewey, but it is still a great read. I love reading about old-time foods when life was simpler and how we can bring them back sustainably and preserve our heritage. I loved her previous book Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine and this one did not disappoint. Highly recommended to foodies who are into more than cooking and eating, if you get my drift: this is a treatise on how to keep traditions and their food alive. #shortbutsweetreviews
  
• 
  Danielle T

  I really enjoyed this! It's been a while since I read her debut book, Eight Flavors but in Endangered Eating, Sarah takes a more hands on approach and travels seeking out eight (technically nine) American entries from Slow Food International's Ark of Taste list for foodstuffs that are endangered, whether due to the cultivar literally being rare/hardly grown (such as some cider apple varieties and the Carolina ground peanuts) or practices that are in decline except for a few passionate individuals (reefnet salmon fishing by indigenous people on the Salish Sea, fresh grinding filé powder from sassafras leaves).
  
  A (probably intentional) undercurrent to many of the ones featured in the book are foods and practices by indigenous nations that were then discouraged by the government for forced assimilation and/or eliminating competitors to predominantly white agriculture (Hawaiian sugarcane, Navajo-Churro sheep, the aforementioned reefnets and manoomin wild rice. I'm pleased to see I've read half the references mentioned for the Carolina African Runner peanuts (I'm writing this on my phone so I can't do the book link insert, but they're Southern Provisions by David S. Shields on recovering the Carolina Rice Kitchen and Carolina Gold rice, and The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty- both are excellent blends of history, memoir, and food). The other theme of some of these is incompatibility with modern monoculture practices for bigger, hardier, faster- the variety of dates in the Coachella Valley (an interesting case where farmers intentionally leaned into Orientalism to sell dates but a growing immigrant population may help demand), the cider apple varieties, and the Carolina runner peanuts fall into this one.
  
  I'll definitely keep an eye out for Lummi salmon and other regional treasures in my area...
• 
  Jennifer

  The Ark of Taste, established by the Slow Food organization to highlight foods and ingredients of cultural importance that are in danger of disappearing, contains a number of unique varieties found across America. In this fascinating book, Lohman explores several of those culinary treasures and traditions, from true wild rice (manoomin) to Carolina Runner peanuts to the dwindling variety of dates in California. Her research gives strong historical context for each item, particularly in their connections to Indigenous communities and traditions, and she reveals what is happening now to ensure that these foods will continue to be grown and appreciated. (Recipes are included, too.)
  
  What I really liked about this book was how Lohman grappled with some of the philosophical questions surrounding preserving these foods and traditions. Where foods such as the Navajo-Churro lamb nearly went extinct thanks to the deliberate acts of the U.S. government (as part of the attempted erasure of the Dine), is it ethical now to make this specialized breed more widely available to those outside the Navajo community? Now that the Carolina Runner peanut, once a vital part of Black culinary traditions in the South, is becoming available to growers, is it fair that their price means they are more likely to end up in the hands of white chefs and farmers instead of the Black community members who see these peanuts as a lost part of their heritage? Lohman doesn't reach for easy answers: instead, she raises awareness of the cultural implications of why these foods were nearly lost and why they are finding new life.
  
  A worthwhile read for foodies. 4 stars.
  
  Thank you, W. W. Norton and Company and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.