Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love

I had already pretty much decided that I simply could not stomach the author, but when, in the last chapter, I read the words, “…remembering who I am and what I deserve,” my antipathy nearly boiled over.

It’s a shame, really, when authors insert so much of themselves directly into their work, because it becomes challenging to separate the author (whom, as you likely gathered from my opening sentence, I did not like) from the work, which is certainly not bad. Bread, Wine, Chocolate is a bit of The Food of a Younger Land meets Sugar, Salt, Fat, with a bit of Let Them Eat Shrimp thrown in for good measure.

Sethi has traveled the globe uncovering the origins of chocolate, wine, bread, beer, and coffee, and more importantly understanding why the varieties of these products is diminishing. The work is informative and well-informed; in the same way that Let Them Eat Shrimp caused me to think twice about the seafood I eat, Bread, Wine, Chocolate has me ruminating over the origins of my flour, in particular, to say nothing of my chocolate. I enjoyed, too, the aspect of travelogue that Sethi has created: from Ecuador to Ethiopia and England to India, she has captured glimpses of what makes places and flavors unique.

In the end, though, I just couldn’t get past too much of the author too much of the time. I didn’t choose Bread, Wine, Chocolate for its memoir aspect, and while the tone generally veered away from the preachy, I almost choked on the last line, “This is a book about food, but it’s really a book about life.” Bolded, no less. And that’s ultimately the issue for me – I wanted a book about food, but too often Sethi stopped to write about her life.

Two stars.

The Shore

Generations of deadbeats, derelicts, and druggies. As best I can tell that sums up Sara Taylor's The Shore. Of course, I only made it two-thirds of the way through before deciding I could not devote any more of my life to this book. I picked it up because of its setting on the outer islands of Virginia.

Several years ago, I spent a glorious week in Chincoteague watching the dolphins and wild ponies, and indulging in some of the best fried chicken and biscuits I’ve ever tasted. I hoped The Shore would capture some of Chincoteague’s beauty, and its charm. It didn’t; more’s the shame.

I couldn't even finish it, let allow give it any stars.

Japan: The Precarious Future

I won't keep you in suspense: this is a dry, academic text, rendered somewhat stale, no less, by events of the past few years. Obviously, I was hoping for more when I came across an essay highlighting some of the demographic findings in The Atlantic earlier this summer. In fact, I had high hopes of being able to assign many of the essays, if not the entire book, to my Business and Culture in Japan students next spring. Given the readability of such trade-centric volumes as Borderless Economies, this didn't seem unreasonable.

Unfortunately, most of the essays in Japan: The Precarious Future - particularly those that do not deal directly with demographics - were too dry to hold my attention, let alone that of my students. What's more, given the evolution of the geopolitical situation in the past year, from the Philippines and the South China Sea, to North Korea, to our own contributions to world instability, many of the essays read as woefully out-of-date. Although the topics remain timely - Japan will face future natural disasters; a visionary PM is still needed to shift the economy; questions of a Japanese military have perhaps never been more relevant - too much that has happened is not included for me to feel that there is real, ongoing value in the essays Frank Baldwin and Annie Allison have edited here.

Unless you are a scholar of all things Japanese, with an insatiable appetite for anything to do with Nihon, it's probably best to skip this one.

No stars. (But who gives stars to academic essays, anyway?)

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

I have such mixed feelings about Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper... that it's hard to know where to begin. I'll start with this: I most enjoyed the pages that read as travelogue, that recounted China on the verge of its rapid transformation from Old World to New World, that helped me to see places that no longer exist as they once did. 

I least enjoyed much of the writing about food, for reasons that I've been trying to put my finger on for the better part of a week. I think, ultimately, Dunlop's expose, if you will, on Chinese cuisine feels too voyeuristic, and there is too much braggadocio in her reminisces about what she ate and when. I have traveled extensively, in China and elsewhere in Asia. I have eaten chicken's feet. I have eaten duck's heart (better than it sounds). I have eaten duck webs. I have drawn the line at whale and also carpaccio of horse. Other cultures eat "weird" things. Trust me, my local Oriental Mart carries pork blood and beef stomach, along with the ubiquitous chicken feet and duck webs. But then, all cultures eat "weird" things (Cheez Whiz, anyone?), and while I don't doubt that Dunlop has the utmost respect for the Chinese culture, I can't help but feel that this book is simply an open invitation for readers to activate the gag reflex and shudder a collective, "ewww."  

With that said, the book itself is well-written, engaging, and informative about Chinese culture, particularly for those with little knowledge of its history, geography, or demographics. For that, I give it four stars. It's all the rest, what I might term the "gut check," that causes me to lower my overall appreciation of the book and hesitate before recommending it too widely.