Eating to Extinction: Saving our Food Traditions
Channel: British Library
Date: 2023-03-09

This event took place on the 14th of April 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.

In his recent book Eating to Extinction, Dan Saladino looks at the stories behind foods that are on the brink of extinction around the world. It’s about food systems, farmers, communities and cultures, and why their possible demise matters.

Dan talks to Jessica B. Harris, leading expert on African and African American foodways, along with two producers who feature in the book, cheese-maker Joe Schneider and perry and cider maker Tom Oliver.

Jessica B. Harris is the author, editor, or translator of 18 books including 12 cookbooks documenting the foodways of the African Diaspora. Her seminal book High on the Hog was the culmination of decades-long research and was serialised by Netflix in 2020 to significant critical acclaim. Dr Harris holds numerous awards and accolades including an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Johnson & Wales University. In 2019, her food-related works were inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame and she is the 2020 James Beard Lifetime Achievement awardee.

Tom Oliver is a cider and perry maker and farmer from Ocle Pychard in Herefordshire. He grows a small number of many varieties of cider apple and perry pear and produces a wide range of products from his own fruit and from a select group of farmers and orchardists in the county. The ciders and perries are made from 100% fresh pressed fruit, fermented spontaneously by wild yeasts, emphasising a very traditional approach of seasonality and vintage but utilising modern technology and science wherever possible. He rediscovered the long lost ‘Coppy’ perry pear some 20 years ago.

Dan Saladino is a journalist and broadcaster. He makes programmes about food for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. His work has been recognised by the Guild of Food Writers Awards, the Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards, and in America by the James Beard Foundation. Eating to Extinction was awarded the 2019 Jane Grigson Trust Award. He lives in Cheltenham but his roots are Sicilian.

Joe Schneider was born in New York State, USA and attended Cornell University for a degree in Agricultural Engineering. He lived in Holland from 1995–1998 where he first learned to make cheese. In 1998 he moved to England and joined a small team on a Biodynamic farm producing dairy products. Joe set up the Daylesford Creamery and five years later, in partnership with Neal’s Yard Dairy, Joe embarked on producing a traditional Stilton from raw milk, the critically-acclaimed Stichleton, reviving an extinct tradition.

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