SCIENCE science.org 21 JANUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6578 273PHOTO: ROBIN HAMMOND/PANOS PICTURES/REDUX
FOOD SYSTEMSBOOKS et al.
fruits, but Saladino distinguishes himself
by exposing readers to lesser-known cor-
ners of these categories. Standouts include
the Australian murnong root, which once
underpinned aboriginal foodways, and rare
local fruits lost in the sweep of globalization,
including the Sicily vanilla orange and the
Ugandan banana. The author then turns to
the overlooked backbone of the food system:
carbohydrates. Here, the reader is treated
to an interplay of history and
geography through crops such as
Kavilca wheat, Orkney barley, and
Oaxaca corn, complete with stories
of seed vaults and landraces.
The breadth of Eating to
Extinction expands with the ani-
mal section, which is less com-
monly explored territory. Saladino
reminds us that we have only do-
mesticated 14 animal species, and
the big five—cattle, goats, pigs,
sheep, and chickens—provide most
terrestrial animal protein. I had never thought
about why we do not eat zebra, but now I
know they are too aggressive to domesticate.
This chapter glossed over the ethical issues
of the animal system. At this point in his-
tory, to uncritically discuss eating a sentient
creature such as the whale falls flat. The pig
and bison sections also felt a little rushed,
but the book comes back to life in the fish
section, where Saladino poses the paradox of
the Atlantic salmon (wild fish are extremely
rare yet farmed salmon are ubiquitous) and
explores the cultural knowledge being threat-
ened by overfishing of the Mauritania mullet.
The book’s exploration of vegetable crops is
a welcome counterpoint to the better-knownfruit species. Saladino’s discussion of the
Geechee red pea is the best exploration of the
interplay between culture and vegetable crops
since Joel Denker’s The Carrot Purple. As he
moves on to the Okinawa soybean, we are
reminded how important soy is in the world
food system, yet once again, a critical rare va-
riety is tended by a single farmer.
The book’s pivot to cheese, alcohol, and
stimulants could appear tacked on, but this
section includes some of Saladino’s
strongest cultural messages.
Readers learn about the devas-
tating impact of war on crops in
a discussion of criollo cacao and
wild Ethiopian coffee and how
the great leap forward in China’s
pu-erh–producing region of south-
ern Yunnan destroyed some of the
oldest wild tea trees on the planet.
Here, I was reminded that I can
enjoy a nice Stilton from Neal’s
Yard in Borough Market with a
sparkling glass of perry only because a hand-
ful of producers took the time and expended
the energy to resurrect vanishing traditions.
Eating to Extinction covers such a vast
swath of time, space, and biology that the epi-
logue is a bit of a letdown with its call to en-
gage with the world of wild local food. There
was room here to talk about policy and orga-
nized action to protect our culinary heritage,
particularly at the governmental level. This is
a minor point, however. Ultimately, Saladino’s
latest work is an impor tant addition to the ur-
gent study of the foods we know and love and
to the threats that imperil them. j10.1126/science.abn1066Biodiversity,
food, and
culture
A loss to one is a loss to all
ByLenore NewmanI
n northern Tanzania near the shore of
Lake Eyasi, a bird known as the honey-
guide has struck a fruitful bargain with
the Hadza people. The unassuming olive-
green birds find honey hidden in the
massive baobab trees that grow nearby,
but they are no match for the bees. Their
human collaborators, once led there by the
birds, smoke the bees into submission. Work-
ing together, bird and human can share the
spoils. But will this millennia-old cooperation
come to an end as cattle farming encroaches
on Hadza land?
Through beautiful stories of nature and
culture such as this, veteran BBC reporter Dan
Sa ladino asks critical questions about bio-
diversity loss and the future of food. Eating to
Extinction is a sprawling wander through the
world’s food system with an urgent message.
The modern food system rests on a persistent
paradox: Although we depend on fewer and
fewer breeds and cultivars for sustenance—
we source 50% of our calories from just three
crops: wheat, rice, and corn—we require the
variety once found in our food species for both
resilience and joy. Eating to Extinction firmly
links biodiversity loss to cultural loss.
The book is a series of variations on a
theme. After a brief (perhaps too brief ) over-
view of the history of food, it unfolds in short
acts in which the author elegantly explores
a food and the people who sustain it. Key
messages emerge as this narrative unfolds:
We are rapidly depleting the wild and histor-
ical variation in our foodstuffs, critical ele-
ments of the food system persist only thanks
to the efforts of a few dedicated individuals,
and initiatives to bank biological diversity
are fraught and tenuous.
Some territory has been covered widely
before, such as wild foods and domesticatedEating to Extinction
Dan Saladino
Farrar, Straus and Giroux,- 464 pp.
The reviewer is at the Food and Agriculture Institute ,
University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, BC, Canada, and
the author of Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future
of Food (ECW Press, 2019). Email: [email protected]Two Hadza men eat honey from combs in the Gideru Ridge region of Tanzania.