When it comes to shopping for food in particular, it can seem like we have so much choice: If you can’t find something at your local grocery store, there’s a whole world of direct-to-consumer brands and specialty markets to shop from online. You can even buy fruit on the internet. But a newish book argues that our food system is actually experiencing an alarming lack of diversity.
Dan Saladino’s Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them is all about the dozens of foods that most of us will never taste, even if they don’t ultimately wind up extinct — the particular strains of grains, fruits, and vegetables, and even the methods for making cheese and beer, that are disappearing due to the industrialized nature of our food system. On Eater, you can read Saladino’s chapter on how the soy boom in the West wiped out a variety of soybean once grown in Okinawa, and one farmer’s attempt to bring back the soybeans and the island tofu that the beans made. These are the foods you can’t buy. But you can buy the book to learn why they still matter.
A Lucali candle, A24 cup and saucer, and Noma's garum.
- Years after the beginning of the pandemic kicked off the trend in full force, Copenhagen’s Noma is the latest restaurant to start selling pantry products. The first in a line of upcoming Noma pantry products is a vegan and gluten-free smoked mushroom garum. (If you’ll recall, lately, chefs have been very into garum, typically a fermented fish sauce.) Chef René Redzepi’s version is available to pre-order on the Noma Projects website starting March 1.
- Victoria James, sommelier and author of Wine Girl, partnered with Lenox on a line of wine glasses. Unlike most other wine glasses, these are designed according to terroir, rather than grape. On her Instagram, James explained: “One glass is for warm regions where ripeness, richness, and elevated levels of alcohol and body call for a little wiggle room. The other glass is for cooler regions where more delicate aromas, leaner body and lower levels of alcohol and oftentimes racier acidity, means you need something a bit more focused and honed.”
- Indie entertainment company A24 partnered with Maruhiro, a brand of Hasami pottery, on some cute cups and saucers, seemingly just because. In bright colors — there’s pink, yellow, red, and white — the sets are unlike the more subdued traditional Hasami porcelain line. For reference, I have a couple of these in my cupboard, and love them.
- Famed Brooklyn pizza spot Lucali has partnered with Joya (the brand A24 partnered with on its genre-themed candle line) on a slew of scented candles. Erbe E Aromi has notes of basil, heirloom tomato, oregano, rosemary, and thyme; Al Forno aims to mimic the scent of a brick oven; Caffè Corretto is modeled after the caffeinated alcoholic drink for which it’s named. There’s also a limited edition Aglio candle, designed to smell like garlic sizzling in olive oil.
- The thing I would most like to add to my cart, though, is a trip to Oaxaca. On Tuesday, Eater published a sweeping guide to the Mexican state, and I’ve been itching to go ever since. Until then, I suppose I’ll have to buy some mezcal.
That’s all for this week. If you liked this email, please forward it to a friend. — Monica
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