Bee Wilson - The Way We Eat Now

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019

Copyright © Bee Wilson 2019

Bee Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Diagrams redrawn by Martin Brown

All reasonable efforts have been made by the author and the publisher to trace the copyright holders of the images and material quoted in this book. In the event that the author or publisher are contacted by any of the untraceable copyright holders after the publication of this book, the author and the publisher will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008240783

Ebook Edition © Jan 2019 ISBN: 9780008240776

Version: 2019-12-03

For Leo

‘Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides’

Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright Copyright Copyright Dedication Epigraph INTRODUCTION: The Gatherers and the Hunted 1: The Food Transition 2: Mismatch 3: Edible Economics 4: Out of Time 5: The Changeable Eater 6: Dinner Without Duty 7: Eating by the Rules 8: The Return to Cooking 9: Crossing the Bridge EPILOGUE: New Food on Old Plates Footnotes References Bibliography Illustrations Index Acknowledgements About the Publisher 4th Estate An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.4thEstate.co.uk First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019 Copyright © Bee Wilson 2019 Bee Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Diagrams redrawn by Martin Brown All reasonable efforts have been made by the author and the publisher to trace the copyright holders of the images and material quoted in this book. In the event that the author or publisher are contacted by any of the untraceable copyright holders after the publication of this book, the author and the publisher will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008240783 Ebook Edition © Jan 2019 ISBN: 9780008240776 Version: 2019-12-03

Dedication Dedication Dedication Epigraph INTRODUCTION: The Gatherers and the Hunted 1: The Food Transition 2: Mismatch 3: Edible Economics 4: Out of Time 5: The Changeable Eater 6: Dinner Without Duty 7: Eating by the Rules 8: The Return to Cooking 9: Crossing the Bridge EPILOGUE: New Food on Old Plates Footnotes References Bibliography Illustrations Index Acknowledgements About the Publisher For Leo

Epigraph Epigraph Epigraph INTRODUCTION: The Gatherers and the Hunted 1: The Food Transition 2: Mismatch 3: Edible Economics 4: Out of Time 5: The Changeable Eater 6: Dinner Without Duty 7: Eating by the Rules 8: The Return to Cooking 9: Crossing the Bridge EPILOGUE: New Food on Old Plates Footnotes References Bibliography Illustrations Index Acknowledgements About the Publisher ‘Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides’ Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’

INTRODUCTION: The Gatherers and the Hunted

1: The Food Transition

2: Mismatch

3: Edible Economics

4: Out of Time

5: The Changeable Eater

6: Dinner Without Duty

7: Eating by the Rules

8: The Return to Cooking

9: Crossing the Bridge

EPILOGUE: New Food on Old Plates

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

Illustrations

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Pick a bunch of green grapes, wash it, and put one in your mouth. Feel the grape with your tongue, observe how cold and refreshing it is: the crisp flesh, and the jellylike interior with its mild, sweet flavour.

Eating grapes can feel like an old pleasure, untouched by change. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved to eat grapes, as well as to drink them in the form of wine. The Odyssey speaks of ‘a ripe and luscious vine, hung thick with grapes’. As you pull the next delicious grape from its stalk, you could easily be plucking it from a Dutch still life of the seventeenth century, where grapes are tumbled on a metal platter with oysters and half-peeled lemons.

But look closer at this bunch of green grapes, cold from the fridge, and you see that they are not unchanged after all. Like so many other foods, grapes have become a piece of engineering designed to please modern eaters. First of all, there are almost certainly no grape seeds for you to either chew or spit out (unless you are in certain places such as Spain or China, where seeded grapes are still part of the culture). Strains of seedless grapes have been cultivated for centuries, but it is only in the past two decades that seedless has become the norm, to spare us the dreadful inconvenience of pips.