From the Sea (Picador Shorts)

In this standalone extract from Eating to Extinction, the distinguished BBC food journalist Dan Saladino travels the world to experience and document our most at-risk foods from the sea before it’s too late.

From exploring the curious case of the wild Scottish salmon and its tumultuous history; to observing the elaborate and highly ritualized process of making Japanese shio-katsu, that prized form of dried skipjack tuna; to learning about the artisanal production of dried mullet roe by the Imraguen in Mauritania; the ocean foodways Saladino profiles here are essential guides to treasured foods the rest of us have forgotten or didn’t know existed.

Throughout these original and grippingly written chapters, Saladino shows us that when foods become endangered, we risk the loss of not only traditional foodways, but also flavors, smells, and textures that may never be experienced again. And he also shows how endangering stocks of at-risk fish comes with the added loss of the human cultures that are tied together with them, and the greater dangers that overfishing poses to marine ecosystems at large.

From the Sea is part of the Picador Shorts series “Oceans, Rivers, and Streams” in which excerpts from beloved classics speak to our relationship with our water bodies, great and small.