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.