Last year was the year of the culinary memoir, with a series of heartfelt reminiscences about that cooking school in Paris, or the love found over a tub of pâte àu choux, or those drunk dinners with Mario. Cute, but none of them approximated the joy of those who created the genre. There's no new MFK Fisher in the lot of them — she of piercing intellect and unplumbed wonder, nor is there anyone to rival the bombastic superiority and lyric command of language found in the works of Brillat-Savarin.
It looked like 2008 would be more of the dreary same — and there are certainly enough foodie Dear Diaries to make a case for it — if it weren't for a healthy, world-changing dose of nihilism that's invaded the world of culinary publishing. The end may not be nigh, but these authors want you to know that it's coming sooner than you think.
Here's a short list of this year's food books aimed right at those people who can't get their daily quotient of doom and gloom from election coverage, Anderson Cooper and summer reality TV.
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
By Dan Koeppel, Hudson Street Press (2008), 281 p., $23.95
This is perhaps the least apocalyptic of the three books, although Banana still manages to stir outrage at the activities of both the U.S. government and the corporations — particularly United Fruit — that have managed the ascent of monkey's best friend from tropical delicacy to one of the most ubiquitous foods in the world.
Long story short: United Fruit fucked over Latin America. Know the term "banana republic"? Thank United Fruit, which used its money and influence to overturn regimes contrary to its business practices and install puppet leaders ready to accept streams of bribes to turn a blind eye to the company's egregious abuse of lands and native peoples, usually with the full support of the U.S. government.
But Koeppel, a journalist for Popular Science, is more concerned with what the history of the banana has to say about its future. Right now only one of the thousands of species grown in the world — the Cavendish — makes it into most grocery stores. That's efficiency at work for the fruit companies. But with monoculture farming comes the threat of disease. It's happened before.
The top banana grown around 1900 was the Gros Michel, largely acknowledged as sweeter and tastier than the Cavendish. Then came a 50-year fight against Panama disease, a fungus that destroyed plantations one at a time. To survive, banana companies adopted the smaller, leaner Cavendish, thought to be resistant to the disease.
Nature adapts. Over the past two decades, a meaner Panama disease has sprung up, prompting banana growers to start looking at next-gen fruit to get behind. In another few decades, you may be eating a different banana entirely.
Tuna: A Love Story
By Richard Ellis, Knopf (2008), 352 p., $27.95
Other books have discussed the impact of the Japanese obsession with bluefin tuna — most notably 2007's Sushi Economy and The Zen of Fish — but none have done it with the singular obsession that Ellis exhibits. He knows more about all the species of tuna than any one person should and — unfortunately for all who don't share his obsession — drops most of that knowledge right into this book.
Charts. Drawings. DNA, finances, spawning behaviors, history — it's all there and more, cluttering up most of the pages and likely turning a lot of readers off to the subject before the real juicy stuff begins.
Get past the tuna data dump and you'll hit a few engaging tales of the giant Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, where discerning sushi chefs and suppliers pay as much as $400 a pound for the finest bluefin. There're also some interesting anecdotes about fishing for tuna and a description of how bluefin haven't been "farmed" so much as "ranched" by producers. The real meat is hidden right at the end of the book, though: At this rate, tuna will disappear from the oceans within our lifetime.
Ellis offers some solutions — stop eating the danged stuff at the top of the list — but the only real hope we have is for someone to convince the fish to start doing the nasty in captivity. Thankfully, just this year an Australian company managed that. Get them up to eating weight and it could relieve the pressure on the wild populations.
The End of Food
By Paul Roberts, Houghton Mifflin (2008), 390 p., $26
Think of it as Omnivore's Dilemma for the global economy, without Michael Pollan's ability to weave experiential narrative into the story of how food hits our plates, and the problems associated with the endeavor. Like Tuna, most of the book is a nigh overwhelming collection of facts. Unlike Tuna, the facts are compelling.
Roberts is no stranger to Armageddon non-fiction — his The End of Oil defined the dangers of our petroleum-based world. End of Food, oddly enough, depicts a much more complex problem, which contains so many interconnected facets that it's difficult to define the core issue, and equally hard to come up with a solution. Meanwhile, people starve, obesity rages and instances of disease increase in both crops and consumers.
Unlike Pollan, Roberts is a strictly practical sort, embracing potential tactics that many in the leftie foodie movement are hesitant to accept — from increased fish farming to loosening the restrictions on organically farmed goods. Sustainability is still his watchword, but it's more about long-term calorie production than personal ethics. People who can't embrace Pollan's lifestyle-oriented philosophy might find a kindred soul in Roberts.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2008.