Finding the Flavors We Lost

The multiple–James Beard award–winning restaurant critic for Los Angeles Magazine delivers an arresting exploration of our cultural demand for “artisanal” foods

We hear the word artisanal all the time—attached to cheese, chocolate, coffee, and more—but what does it actually mean? We take “farm to table” and “handcrafted food” for granted now, but how did we get here? In Finding the Flavors We Lost, acclaimed food writer Patric Kuh profiles major figures in the so-called artisanal food movement who brought exceptional taste back to food and inspired chefs and restaurateurs to redefine and rethink the way we eat.

Kuh begins by narrating the entertaining stories of countercultural “radicals” who taught themselves the forgotten crafts of bread-, cheese-, and beer-making in reaction to the ever-present marketing of bland, mass-produced food, and how these people became the inspiration for today’s crop of young chefs and artisans. Finding the Flavors We Lost also analyzes how population growth, speedier transportation, and the societal shifts and economic progress of the twentieth century led to the rise of supermarkets and giant food corporations, which encouraged the general desire to swap effort and quality for convenience and quantity.

This book raises a host of critical questions: How big of an operation is too big for a food company to still call itself “artisanal”? Does the high cost of handcrafted goods unintentionally make them unaffordable for many Americans? Does technological progress have to quash flavor? Eye-opening, informative, and entertaining, Finding the Flavors We Lost is a fresh look into the culture of artisanal food as we know it today—and what its future may be.