cover image The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future 
of Food

The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food

Josh Schonwald. Harper, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-180421-2

In search of what people will be probably be eating in 2035, Chicago food writer Schonwald considered sustainability and taste in unearthing some far-out gastronomic trends, from salad weeds to warehoused fish. In this easygoing, evenhandedly researched account, he takes the reader through his discoveries: in Salinas, Calif., the capital of America’s salad bowl, he gleans new possibilities for nutrient-rich bagged greens, from radicchio to such motley weeds as purslane (Gandhi’s favorite vegetable) and thistle; an in vitro meat lab in Utrecht, Netherlands, attempts to come up with RMD (a red meat alternative) that does not emit greenhouse gases, pack saturated fats, and carry diseases; while in Saltville, Va., aka Fish City, USA, the perfect saltwater fish—cobia—is happily grown in a landlocked warehouse that aims to capture its own gas emissions as well as help jump-start a domestic seafood industry closer to consumers. (An alarming 90% of the seafood in the U.S. is imported.) Schonwald surprised himself by adjusting his opinion of genetically modified foods, aka Frankenfood, by visiting geneticist Pamela Ronald’s plant lab at UC Davis, for example, which develops foods resistant to disease and rich in nutrients that can help feed the Third World. In his candid, sensible survey, Schonwald weighs carefully the pros and cons of our well-intentioned, but often blindsided “foodie fundamentalism.” (Apr.)