Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World

No eggs, no beef, and only an occasional fish. Those were the hungry years after the Second World War in the English countryside, when the sighting of a rogue hen or even a thin pig was a cause for celebration. But that didn’t matter, because the warm stove was still the hub of the house, and a family meal, however scant, was a shared experience. Food still promised pleasure, unstained by guilt or fear. To eat was enough. But how quickly that would change as Gina Mallet journeyed through the darkening foodscape of our times.

It was in the 1990s, when the author was reviewing restaurants, that she came to confront the paradox of contemporary food. There was more and more food, more publicity about food, more cookbooks and cooking shows than ever, but there was less variety and less taste, and some common foods were actually threatened with extinction. Why?

In this provocative and evocative book, Gina Mallet weaves together her own experiences in England and America and her memories of great taste with a grim look at the enemies of good food: the U.N.’s template for universal taste; trade wars; healthism; extreme environmentalists; food scientists; food scares; organic dogma; zero tolerance for flavour-bearing bacteria.

Mallet quotes Elizabeth David when she advises “Shop well” – but do it fast.

Gina Mallet is a journalist, restaurant reviewer, and enthusiastic cook, who has written extensively on food. She has been a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Chatelaine, and Maclean’s.