Adriana Luna-Daz Renewing Americas Food Traditions Key Points: The book aims to adopt a way of eating and

living that allows the recovery of native species, cultures and sustainable practices. It states that when some of these traditional foods disappear, history, a cultural value, a link in the ecosystems equilibrium and a source of future security for our alimentary sovereignty also disappears. Explains some causes of culinary impoverishment as a multilayer issue The strategy that the organizations behind the book propose to achieve this goals are (a) recognizing endangered place-based foods, (b) recovering them, (c) restoring their landscapes, (d) share (e) impulse local markets (f) rewarding the original stewards, (g) reducing or eliminating contamination. Inventory of 101 species with history of its settlement and spread along with some recipes I perceived a slightcolonizer bias into the text.

Book Review The book is part of a bigger effort, as the books name says, to renew the ancient food traditions, this is to say, not only to recover the usage of certain plant or animal products but to adopt the way of eating - and therefore of living that allows these species to gain terrain in the territory, in our life and in our tables. It starts illustrating that when regional and dietary variety is allowed to collapse depending on just a few varieties of a few species - not only a commodity is lost, but a history, a cultural value, a link in the ecosystems equilibrium and a source of future security for our alimentary sovereignty. In order to impulse the recovery and revival of the mentioned traditions, the organizations behind this book (Center for Sustainable Environments, Slow Food USA, American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Chefs Collaborative, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Cultural Conservancy and Seed Savers Exchange, among others) propose, in first place, the classification of the North American territory in a quite arbitrary way, given that includes some parts of Northern Mexico but not all of it according to culturally and ecologically emblematic species present within them, because this encourage a sense of familiarity and belonging; they evoke the feeling of home. Next, they offer a series of tips for the different stakeholders, from producers to chefs and eaters, to collaborate and promote the mentioned traditions: (a) recognizing endangered place-based foods, (b) recovering their species, varieties and/or populations, (c) restoring their eco-cultural landscapes, (d) share knowledge, (e) impulse local markets for those products, (f) rewarding the original stewards of these resources, (g) reducing or eliminating chemical or genetic contamination. The book contains an inventory of more than 100 species with some beautiful chronicles of the history of the different crops as well as very interesting recipes

that I definitely would try, although the data are not always accurate as the chapter referring to the tomatillos- reflecting a theorized approach to the matter more than a real one. I liked the overall idea of the book but I couldnt help to notice certain western trend in the spirit of the text, stressing the role of the early colonizers in the settlement and spread of certain species as the mission grape and pre-civil war peanut than in the role of Native Americans on the generation of thousands of varieties of different crops and maintenance of biodiversity through special management for thousands of years before Columbus and for hundred of years since then. It offers a simplified but, at a certain extent, accurate explanation for the causes of Culinary Impoverishment using an onion as a metaphor of the complexity of the issue and the multiple layers of it:

a) Physical changes that have altered the soils, streams, oceans, aquifers and

atmosphere due to the severe disturbances that human have introduced in the landscapes. b) Biological changes as those introduced by pests, diseases, parasites and invasive species, among which the Genetically Modified Organisms are a particularly concerning matter. c) Disruption in the equilibrium of interspecific relationships as pollination, predator-prey relationships as natural control of extreme proliferation of one species, etc. d) Lost of genetic biodiversity by favoring one variety of one species over all of the others. e) Loss of cultural and culinary traditions. The book says that if resident cultures forget the multiple uses of a crop then the loss of local knowledge accelerates genetic erosion. This last layer, I believe, lacks the first cause of the lost of cultural and culinary traditions, this is to say, the disappearance, by thousands, of the ones that were responsible for all that richness, exterminated by the colonizers guns, abuses or germs and the forced exile of the survivors to remote locations. The management of the land, the recipes, the knowledge and the worldview did not just got lost, it was killed and hidden in the reservations or stole and applied by the conquistadores without the context that gave birth and expanded that diversity (Zinn, Howard). Until this fact is accepted and the chance and impulse of being protagonists in this movement (with all what it represents) is given to the original heirs of that knowledge, until we understand and respect the historical, cultural and spiritual background behind the exploitation of these species, the adoption of this diet wont be any different from the adoption of any other New Age one. My two final comments are, first, that these important efforts are mostly driven by western organizations (although some First Nations representatives are included but they are not the majority or at least is not clear from the reading of the book) probably because the Native Americans and other communities may have not the money, organization, scientific capacity, etc. to conduct them but that fact itself is a good indicative of the lag of such communities and the entire society has the moral responsibility to aid not drive - their development within their own worldview, and second, although it is almost the rule to call America to the United

States, I dont like the use of the name to refer to a country or even to a region (North America). America is a whole continent rich in traditions, biodiversity, cultures, languages, cosmologies, etc and the use of a continents name to refer only one of its representatives, for me, it reflects a colonizer perspective.