The Lost Supper by Taras Grescoe CBC Books

According to some estimates, a quarter of the 8.7 million known plant and animal species alive today are likely to become extinct over the next few decades. I try to delve into the sources of this conflicted relationship in the book. At its apogee under the Roman Empire, the city became Caput Mundi, the capital of the world, with a population of 1.4 million. By the sixteenth century, the population had shrunk to 25,000.

He has prowled nocturnally in the footsteps of Dalí and Buñuel in Toledo, Spain Taras Grescoe for National Geographic Traveler, eaten bugs at the Insectarium for The Independent, and substituted for the late William Safire in the New York Times Magazine. His travel essays have been published in several anthologies. His journalism has been recognized with three Canadian National Magazine Awards, two Western Magazine Awards, and awards from the Northern Lights Foundation and the North American Association of Travel Journalists.

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The transportation system in particular is a mess (though admittedly, it’s hard to make progress on digging new metro  lines in such an ar-cheological treasure trove) and corruption is a big problem. The tyrant Minos has imprisoned Icarus and his fa-ther, the brilliant Athenian inventor Daedalus. As they plot their escape, Icarus points out that “Minos may possess everything, but he does not possess the air.” Icarus, of course, comes close to escaping on wax wings, invented by Daedalus, but flies too close to the sun and plunges into the sea.

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It was also awarded the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction by the Quebec Writers’ Federation, first prize for Literary Food Writing from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and was a finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize. Straphanger won the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction, and was one of five finalists for the Writers’ Trust Award in 2012, as well as being longlisted for the National B.C. Book Prize for Non-Fiction and becoming one of five finalists for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Following the publication of Straphanger, he has given dozens of keynote talks—from Portland, Oregon to Halifax, Nova Scotia—on the subject of sustainable transportation and urbanism. Born in Toronto, raised in Calgary and Vancouver, and schooled in flânerie in Paris, he now lives on an island called Montreal, which can be found at the confluence of the Ottawa and Saint Lawrence Rivers. Taras Grescoe is the author of seven nonfiction books and a widely read commentator on the interplay of food, travel, and the environment.

Since 1900, three-fourths of the genetic diversity once stored in farmers’ fields has been lost. Under the guidance of a British expert in Roman cookery, I spent three months fermenting garum from Portuguese sardines. It’s now become a secret ingredient in my own cooking; it brings savory intensity to all kinds of stews and pasta sauces. Making garum was a way of discovering how unfamiliar—but also how delicious—ancient cooking really was. I realized the Roman mix of sweet, sour, and savory has more in common with Cantonese cooking than it does with modern Italian food. Taras Grescoe is a journalist, travel writer, and author of several nonfiction titles, such as Straphanger, Bottomfeeder, and The End of Elsewhere.

Humanity’s backup plan, unfortunately, is to keep the seeds and semen of plants and livestock in gene banks. There’s a gene bank for olives in Cordoba, Spain, another for wheat in Morocco, for corn in Mexico, and the mother of them all, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is located north of the Arctic Circle on an island halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. The problem is that seeds kept inert in cold storage aren’t evolving with and adapting to changes in the environment. Agrobiodiversity, which refers to the range of plants and livestock that feed us, is also in decline. A tenth of the 6,000 or so breeds of domesticated animals used in agriculture are already extinct.

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For him, Mussolini’s totalitarianism, like Minos’s tyranny, aspired to possess every-thing—every aspect of the life of its citizens. The above represents the biographical information provided by the publisher for the most recent book by this author that BookBrowse has covered. If you are looking for a more expansive biography, you may wish to do an internet search for the author's website or social media presence.

The best hope for important species is to find their wild relatives, plant them, cultivate them—and eat them. When it comes to food, the secret to time travel is that humans alive today are identical in physique, intelligence, and problem-solving abilities to just about anybody who has lived in the last sixty thousand years. When confronted with a problem—like how to build shelter or assemble a meal—our ancestors drew on the same set of innate capacities that we possess today. Once you know that, the only things you need to go into the past are curiosity and imagination. Visit Author Central to update your books, profile picture, and biography.

Taras Grescoe, a non-fiction specialist, writes essays, articles, and books. He is the author of Sacré Blues, The End of Elsewhere, The Devil's Picnic, Bottomfeeder, Straphanger, and most recently, Shanghai Grand. Taras is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Guardian, and National Geographic Traveler.