How do human appetites shape plants and animals, land and water, the world’s present and its future? Because eating is one of the most direct ways that people interact with environments—locally and globally—by literally digesting them, fashions in food map not only changes in tastes, but also social and environmental transformations. This course assembles a cast of extinct and endangered plants and animals—from silphium to passenger pigeons and from Carolina gold rice to wild Atlantic salmon—to survey the history of culinary extinction and to consider the relationship between cuisine and climate.

On 16 May we will be discussing culinary relationships, conviviality, multispecies entanglements, and what becomes food (and for whom). All are welcome to join!