What does it mean when a food or drink becomes “endangered”, when there are so few people producing it that it is on the brink of disappearing for ever? Should we worry, as we do about ancient ruins and the giant panda? Or should we conclude that the loss of historic cheeses, cakes, fruits, booze and even animal species is the sad but inevitable result of people’s palates and priorities changing?
On the one hand, it is hard to be too sad about Britain’s vanishing apple varieties next to the more immediate problems facing the country. If granny smiths and Pink Ladies are always available, what is the point in mourning the demise of the Blenheim orange apple? But it is not just apples that are disappearing. In Ark of Taste, a catalogue of endangered foods by the Slow Food movement, 5,952 are registered around the world, while in his book Eating to Extinction, food journalist Dan Saladino charts the demise of varieties of grains, pigs, cheese, wine and even coffee beans.
