Welcome to the website of Dan Saladino, food journalist, writer and broadcaster. Here you will find articles, films and audio linked to his books Eating to Extinction, The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them and From the Sea, as well as updates on stories Dan has covered, and the latest research on food, biodiversity and indigenous food systems.
This is the personal website of Dan Saladino dedicated to Eating to Extinction. For BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme click here.
EATING TO EXTINCTION ON FILM
Eating to Extinction is a book full of stories of where our food comes from and the origins of the plants and animals we depend on today. It explores food diversity created by farmers and food producers over thousands of years, explains why that diversity is disappearing and argues that this matters to us all.
This film is about that central idea in the book and is based on the chapter titled Memang Nerang. This is the name given by the Garo people of north-eastern India to the wild and now endangered ancestor of all the oranges grown around the world today. Memang Nerang means ‘Fruit of Ghosts’ because the fruit is used in a death ritual, the sour and bitter oranges collected from the forest to be placed around the body of a deceased member of the community.
But this tiny citrus fruit features in every part of the Garo people’s lives, from beginning to end, and the story of this relationship between people and a sacred fruit inspired Nathan Cozzolino, Rob Fraebel and Scott Barry of Rose Los Angeles to make a film. That’s why film-maker Jason Taylor travelled with me to the Garo Hills to find Memang Nerang, to meet some of the Garo people and to discover their contribution to maintaining and preserving one of the world’s great biodiversity hotspots and one of its rarest foods.
