Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past

Summary

The world can’t sustain the way we eat today. Whether it’s ultra-processed oils, factory-farmed meat, or monoculture wheat, industrial agriculture has increasingly dire consequences for the vibrancy of our plates, health, and planet. While some look to high-tech solutions, like lab-grown meat or transgenic produce, Taras Grescoe argues that the future of our food lies in the diversity of the past.

In The Lost Supper, Grescoe searches for the fascinating flavors, many forgotten or on the verge of extinction, that tell the stories of civilizations: “Aztec caviar” from a vanishing lake in Mexico; garum, the secret umami ingredient of Ancient Roman cuisine; acorn-fed feral pigs on one of Georgia’s barrier islands; and camas, a staple of Northwest Coast Indigenous Peoples. He chronicles a growing movement of archaeologists, farmers, and food producers who are unearthing and reviving the nourishing, delicious, and sustainable foods of the past—from Neolithic sourdough and farmhouse cheese to wild olives and long-thought extinct plants—along with chefs and enthusiasts who are bringing history alive in their own kitchens.

A deep dive into the archaeology of taste and an impassioned manifesto for the future of food, The Lost Supper sets out a provocative case: in order to save ourselves, we need to think—and eat—much more like our ancestors did.