Rowan Jacobsen's 6 favorite books that explore our relationship with food

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Rowan Jacobsen is the James Beard Award-winning author of "A Geography of Oysters" and "Truffle Hound." His new book, "Wild Chocolate," tells the stories of the farmers, activists, and chocolatiers laboring to bring ancient cacao back from near extinction.

'Totem Salmon' by Freeman House (1999)

A lot of good books have been written about salmon, but none compares with "Totem Salmon," House's masterpiece about the efforts of his Northern California community to restore king salmon to their watershed. "Ecosystem absences can become a palpable presence," he writes, "a weird stillness moving against the winds of existence." House never wrote a second complete book. He didn't need to. Buy it here.

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'The Botany of Desire' by Michael Pollan (2001)

Pollan's breakthrough book, and still his best, this "plant's-eye view" asks not what apples, tulips, marijuana, and the potato can do for us, but what we have done for them. A delightfully original perspective that has changed the way I see the world on a daily basis. Buy it here.

'On Food and Cooking' by Harold McGee (2004 edition)

The one reference book on this list, and a must for every bookshelf. McGee's nerdy dive helped us all to understand the deep structure underlying gastronomy. Suddenly, it all made sense. Buy it here.

'The Dirty Life' by Kristin Kimball (2010)

Kristin Kimball was a Manhattan journalist when she did a story on a young farmer with some radical ideas. Reader, she married him. Soon, the two of them were launching a wildly experimental community-supported agriculture program in upstate New York that set a new standard for how much food, community, and chaos you can create out of one patch of dirt. Buy it here.

'Agave Spirits' by David Suro Pinera and Gary Paul Nabhan (2023)

Agave is the succulent that gives us mezcal and tequila. It's also a linchpin of desert ecosystems, a touchstone of Mexican culture, and friggin' delicious when made using ancestral methods. This book will have you savoring every sip. Buy it here.

'The Salt Stones' by Helen Whybrow (2025)

In achingly poetic prose, this forthcoming chronicle of life on a Vermont hill farm captures the familial responsibilities of the shepherd — for animals, parents, children, wild things, and the land upon which we walk for such a brief time. Buy it here.

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