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.

I was browsing on NetGalley and found this collection of stories about traditions surrounding American food. Interest piqued! Thank you for my early audiobook copy!

Wild rice, dates, and cider apples (which sold me!) are some of the topics Lohman set out to learn more on throughout this book. I think this collection would be a good match for foodies and history buffs, and the audiobook is exceptional.

This book is broken into sections, each about a particular food. Allowing the reader to hop around and come back if a particular food interests them first. The author travels to the source of each and speaks with experts and locals to learn the lore and why they’re each endangered.

The section on dates and how they’re transported, reproduced by farmers, and the length of time involved was fascinating. Not at all what I expected!

I personally love when audiobooks are narrated by the author. Lohman’s passion for the work shines through, and makes the listening experience that much more engaging. This book is a great, accessible way for people to learn more about the local food systems of other communities.

I am so thankful to Dreamscape Media, Sarah Lohman, and Netgalley for granting me advanced audio access before this baby hits shelves on October 24, 2023. I am always so intrigued to learn while I'm reading and especially within a field that is so dire on everyone's growth and health.