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Feasting wild : in search of the last untamed food / Gina Rae La Cerva.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Vancouver ; Berkeley : Greystone Books, [2020]Description: xvi, 317 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781771645331
  • 1771645334
Subject(s): Summary: "A writer and anthropologist searches for wild foods--and reveals what we lose in a world where wildness itself is misunderstood, commodified, and hotly pursued. Two centuries ago, nearly half the North American diet was found in the wild. Today, so-called 'wild foods' are becoming expensive commodities, served to the wealthy in top restaurants. In Feasting Wild, geographer and anthropologist Gina Rae La Cerva traces our relationship to wild foods and shows what we sacrifice when we domesticate them--including biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge, and an important connection to nature. Along the way, she samples wild foods herself, sipping elusive bird's nest soup in Borneo and smuggling Swedish moose meat home in her suitcase. Thoughtful, ambitious, and wide-ranging, Feasting Wild challenges us to take a closer look at the way we eat today."-- Provided by publisher.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 641.302 L131 Available 33111009741410
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 641.302 L131 Available 33111009662749
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Selection

"Delves into not only what we eat around the world, but what we once ate and what we have lost since then."--The New York Times Book Review

Two centuries ago, nearly half the North American diet was foraged, hunted, or caught in the wild. Today, so-called "wild foods" are becoming expensive luxuries, served to the wealthy in top restaurants. Meanwhile, people who depend on wild foods for survival and sustenance find their lives forever changed as new markets and roads invade the world's last untamed landscapes.

In Feasting Wild, geographer and anthropologist Gina Rae La Cerva embarks on a global culinary adventure to trace our relationship to wild foods. Throughout her travels, La Cerva reflects on how colonialism and the extinction crisis have impacted wild spaces, and reveals what we sacrifice when we domesticate our foods --including biodiversity, Indigenous and women's knowledge, a vital connection to nature, and delicious flavors. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, La Cerva investigates the violent "bush meat" trade, tracking elicit delicacies from the rainforests of the Congo Basin to the dinner tables of Europe. In a Danish cemetery, she forages for wild onions with the esteemed staff of Noma. In Sweden--after saying goodbye to a man known only as The Hunter--La Cerva smuggles freshly-caught game meat home to New York in her suitcase, for a feast of "heartbreak moose."

Thoughtful, ambitious, and wide-ranging, Feasting Wild challenges us to take a closer look at the way we eat today, and introduces an exciting new voice in food journalism.

"A memorable, genre-defying work that blends anthropology and adventure."--Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times-bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction

"A food book with a truly original take."--Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Salt: A World History

"An intense and illuminating travelogue... offer[ing] a corrective to the patriarchal white gaze promoted by globetrotting eaters like Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. La Cerva combines environmental history with feminist memoir to craft a narrative that's more in tune with recent works by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Helen Macdonald and Elizabeth Rush."--The Wall Street Journal

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-308) and index.

"A writer and anthropologist searches for wild foods--and reveals what we lose in a world where wildness itself is misunderstood, commodified, and hotly pursued. Two centuries ago, nearly half the North American diet was found in the wild. Today, so-called 'wild foods' are becoming expensive commodities, served to the wealthy in top restaurants. In Feasting Wild, geographer and anthropologist Gina Rae La Cerva traces our relationship to wild foods and shows what we sacrifice when we domesticate them--including biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge, and an important connection to nature. Along the way, she samples wild foods herself, sipping elusive bird's nest soup in Borneo and smuggling Swedish moose meat home in her suitcase. Thoughtful, ambitious, and wide-ranging, Feasting Wild challenges us to take a closer look at the way we eat today."-- Provided by publisher.

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