Review: Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods
Áine McGehee Marley, Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies
May 2024
Book Review
Protecting endangered foods one bite at a time
Hannah Walhout and Kayla Stewart, Salon.com
May 2024
“One box of dates, one bag of rice, one pint of cider — those are all successes to me, because that means that some small producer is being supported and doing something that they love.”
Program 751: Endangered Eating
Travel with Rick Steves
Podcast
April 2024
“Hear from a culinary historian about the crops, farm animals, and agricultural traditions that we risk losing in America.”
Endangered Eating with Sarah Lohman
REPAST, Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law (podcast)
February 2024
Endangered Eating
Audiofile
Feb 2024
Audiobook Review
“Sarah Lohman is a surprisingly effective narrator of her thoughtful audiobook. She narrates with a pointed reportorial style and measured cadence that suit this text … She does Native accents impressively in sections on the Navajo (Diné) and Choctaw people.”
The Best Books of 2023 on the History and People Behind How We Eat
Korsha Wilson, Food & Wine
Dec, 2023
Book Review
“Through eight first-person essays, Lohman tracks down the farms, restaurants, growers, and fisherman that are part of the life cycle of ingredients like heirloom cider apples from the Hudson Valley, dates from California’s Coachella Valley, and even Navajo Churro sheep in the southwestern United States. In doing so, she illuminates how the delicate balance of agriculture, demand and production impact what is available and how we can protect heritage ingredients from being lost forever.“
9 New Books We Recommend This Week
Shreya Chattopadhyay, New York Times
Book Review
Nov 2023
“Part travelogue, part history and part eulogy, [Lohman’s] book plumbs not just the American plate, but its soul.”
Program 735: American Thanksgiving
Travel with Rick Steves
Podcast
Nov 2023
“A culinary historian tells us what’s traditionally been on the Thanksgiving table over the years.”
Interview; ‘On the brink of extinction’: a food historian’s hunt for ingredients vanishing from US plates
Emily Cataneo, The Guardian
Nov 2023
Conrad Benner Talks Public Art, Americans’ Economic Worries, Endangered Food
WHYY PBS NPR Philadelphia/Delaware
Radio
Nov 2023
Book Tour For An Amazon #1 Bestseller
New Day Cleveland FOX 8
Television
Nov 2023
Eat It To Save It
Louisiana Eats!
Podcast
Nov 2023
How to help the environment? Farmers and food enthusiasts have ideas.
Alexis Burling, Washington Post
Book Review
Nov 2023
“From Coachella Valley’s date gardens to heirloom cider apples in New York’s Hudson Valley to Choctaw filé powder in Louisiana, each stop Lohman makes is more interesting than the last. . . . But Endangered Eating isn’t just a foodie travelogue (with recipes sprinkled throughout). Lohman encourages people to follow her lead and learn more about their food’s origins.We can start by reading her intrepid book“
Sarah Lohman on Saving America’s Endangered Foods
KQED NPR PBS San Francisco
Radio
Oct 2023
How to Rescue Out-of-Fashion Foods
Paul Rauber, Sierra magazine
Oct 2023
“Lohman wanders the nation armed with a notebook and a fork in search of disappearing foodstuffs. . . . [Endangered Eating] is about not just the foods but also the cultures that produced them, and Lohman does all of them justice.”
Gutting American Cuisine
Kim Severson, New York Times Book Review
Oct 2023
“[Endangered Eating] is as much a fascinating study of heirloom cider apples and Buckeye chickens as it is a commentary on the way politics, money and convenience have conspired against America’s culinary history. . . . The deep cultural and political history Lohman unearths is worth the ride.”
23 Must-Read Books that Will Transform How You Think about Food and the World
Liza Greene, Food Tank
Book Review
“Sarah Lohman sheds light on the urgency of safeguarding Indigenous culinary customs through her tales of traversing America in search of endangered foods. In Endangered Eating she highlights the influence of colonization upon foodways, and also advocates for the localization of food systems and greater support for food producers and community organizations.“
Books for Fall 2023
Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
Book Review
Sept 2023
“Endangered Eating is culinary historian Sarah Lohman’s surprising journey across the United States, visiting the vanishing futures of native peanuts, apples, Ojibwe wild rice, Hawaiian sugar cane.“
The Best Food Books to Read This Fall
Bettina Makalintal, Eater
Sept 2023
Book Review
“Lohman deftly combines history and people-forward accounts of her travels across the country to learn from food producers. The result is a thoughtful, compelling read about why these food traditions matter and are worth preserving.“
Revealing the secrets of Las Vegas restaurant history
by Jonathan L. Wright
Las Vegas Review Journal, Sept 17, 2023
“We like to laugh at some of the foods of the ’50s and ’60s, but that was when we were forming our modern cuisine.”
ENDANGERED EATING
Book Review, Kirkus
July 2023
“Enjoyable, entertaining, and meaningful. … A tasty sojourn through the landscape of America’s endangered foods, served with a scoop of energy and a dash of hope.”
Endangered Eating
Book Review, Publisher’s Weekly
“The history is vivid and fascinating, astutely probing the ways that many of these foods have been nearly eradicated by colonization and violence … Part travelogue and part history, this is ideal for curious foodies.
Food, Connection, and Community
NAI 2022 National Conference Keynote Excerpt and a Conversation
Legacy Magazine, May-June 2023
“The primary aspect that drew me to food history was that I noticed when people were eating, they were more receptive to asking questions, listening, and sharing their own personal stories. It was often an opportunity to broach difficult topics.”
The Curious Connection Between Food and Cults
By Sam O’Brien
Gastro Obscura, Oct 2022
“I found out that Oneida was a 19th-century cult that, among other things, made flatware to make money for their free-love cult. That sent me down the rabbit hole, because it was from that moment onward that I realized that there are often a lot of connections between food and cults.”
Al Roker gets the scoop on the surprising history of American ice cream shops
Family Style, TODAY all Day (video)
June 26, 2022
Featured ice cream history expert.
A Conversation with Sarah Lohman
From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy (podcast)
March 9, 2022
Talking about the parameters of “American food” with the author of ‘Eight Flavors.’
A short history of American food
By Channon Hodge
CNN, November 27, 2020
Article and Video
‘”It’s really, really influenced by indigenous cultures and, in particular, by enslaved people who come from the Caribbean, by enslaved people who come from Africa or African descendants,”‘ says Lohman.
NYC City Tour Guides Take Visitors Off The Beaten Path
By Anne Kadet
Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2017
“Sarah Lohman’s passion—the American immigrant experience seen through the lens of culinary history—is a narrow topic for sure. How do you monetize that? For the Lower East Side gastronome it means publishing a book, working museum gigs and maintaining a blog. But her fourth sideline sounds the most amusing: she takes tourists on eating expeditions around the city.”
Is Real Vanilla Always Better Than Imitation Vanilla?
By Joe Sevier
Epicurious, March 24, 2017
“Culinary historian Sarah Lohman makes the argument that there are times when imitation vanilla extract is actually preferable to pure. ? ‘I believe there is a time and place to use every version of vanilla in your kitchen: Bean, natural extract, and imitation extract,’ she writes.”
What Today’s Cooks on a Budget Can Learn From Tenement Life
By Barbara Hoffman
New York Post, March 14, 2017
“Lohman tried living on what she calls “a poverty diet” eight years ago, when she found an 1877 pamphlet titled “Fifteen Cent Dinners,” outlining meals that could feed a family of six for $3 a week.”
Devouring (and Drinking) American History
by Corey Kilgannon
New York Times November 16, 2016
“Ms. Lohman calls herself a ‘historic gastronomist,’ explaining that she searches old cookbooks and other records to recreate forgotten recipes as a way of studying history and the effects of earlier cooking on modern eating habits. Part of her work involves putting herself through eating experiments, which she calls “an elaborate form of performance art.”
How a Historian Experienced Post-Election Grief and Used Food to Find New Purpose
by Chase Purdy
Quartz November 18, 2016
“Everyone eats, and Lohman has found that people of all creeds and colors enjoy asking questions about food—that it’s a medium people are comfortable using to investigate other cultural issues. Employing food and her immersion-style research as a conversation starter, Lohman hopes to focus more of her attention on telling the stories of American immigrant communities.”
Museums Offer Food for Thought
by Sophia Hollander
Wall Street Journal May 24, 2016
“There is a tendency to look back and think, “they were all Jewish—they all wanted the same thing, they came from the same background and for the same reasons and that is not true,” said Sarah Lohman, who studies the history of food and who developed the program for the museum. “I wanted to use food to break apart that nostalgia.”
A Culinary Tour of the Lower East Side
The Bowery Boys podcast
April 18, 2016
Join Tom as he experience the tastes of another era by visiting some of the oldest culinary institutions of the Lower East Side. From McSorley’s to Katz’s, Russ & Daughters and Economy Candy — when did these shops open, who did they serve, and how, in the world are they still with us today? He explores the topic with author Sarah Lohman.
#9 Pigeons
Surprisingly Awesome podcast
March 22, 2016
“There’s often reasons why we don’t eat certain foods anymore. You know? It’s a small bird without a lot of meat and a very, very distinct taste and texture, that’s not going to appeal to everybody.”
The Scoop on Ice Cream
Gastropod
July 28th, 2015
Grab your spoons and join us as we bust ice-cream origin myths, dig into the science behind brain freeze, and track down a chunk of pricey whale poo in order to recreate the earliest published ice cream recipe. In the episode, historical gastronomist Sarah Lohman scored some wildly expensive ambergris in order to recreate Lady Anne Fanshawe’s ice cream; listen in to hear our verdict on the taste.
Mourning the Matzo
All Things Considered
NPR
April 1, 2015
An interview with NPR’s All Things Considered on the closing of the Streit’s Matzo factory on the Lower East Side, after 90 years in business. “We aren’t really losing this product, or this family, or this business,” Lohman says. “It’s still very much a part of New York history and Jewish history in America.”
Back Of The House: The Fascinating Work of a Historic Gastronomist
By Jaya Saxena
Serious Eats, February 26th, 2014
‘”Historic Gastronomist’ is a title Lohman came up with to describe her mission of discovering American history through food, and using those findings to illuminate our current eating habits. ‘Molecular gastronomists, or modernists, use modern technology to advance cuisine and our knowledge of food,’ she explains. ‘I use history.”‘
Sarah Lohman, Foodie Historian: OLD RECIPES, RETRIED
By Jessica Weisberg
The New Yorker blog, Sept. 28, 2012
“Lohman is serious, but lighthearted, about her work; she’s a skilled cook, but she seems to most enjoy the treasure hunts that certain recipes require. For an early-twentieth-century bread recipe that called for “cheese tang,” which Lohman deduced to be an extinct powdered-cheese product, she substituted an instant-mac-and-cheese flavor packet. (It turned out quite well.)”
Must-Have Gadgets for the Kitchen? Think Again.
By William Grimes
New York Times, March 20, 2012
“‘What we should be asking is, what are the simplest tools that are most effective?” she said. “It’s very difficult to find a tool that makes things easier rather than adding an extra step.’” Read the full article here.