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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moveable Feasts by Sarah Murray, 29 Jun 2007
Sarah Murray, a regular contributor to the Financial Times, has a deep and abiding interest in the transportation of food. Food, whilst important to this book, takes a secondary role to the way it is moved, processed and packaged. This may seem to be a rather dry and narrow subject to be writing about but this book is packed full of fascinating facts and incredible stories about how the food we eat ends up on our supermarket shelves.
Take for example ship and lorry containers. These may be of little interest to you but Murray makes a very convincing argument that these seemingly humble and, from their superficial appearance at least, rather plain looking metal boxes are in fact at the centre of the rise in the globalistion of trade. Without them globalisation may never have happenned.
Apart from containers the book has chapters on the millennia old trade in olive oil, the transportation of tea, the incredibly long journeys made by dead, as well as live, salmon. My particular favourite was the chapter on the dabbawallahs of Mumbai. Their job is to take meals prepared mid-morning in suburban houses,typically by wives,to their waiting hungry husbands. This involves thousands of dabbawallahs using bikes and trains to deliver the lunch boxes to tens of thousands of customers and then doing the whole journey in reverse to get the boxes back to the house again. According to American management researchers the system is practically perfect- there is only one chance in a billion of a mistake being made.
The author has researched her topic thoroughly and the bibliography is extensive. In addition she has interviewed a wide range of people all of whom are fascinating,some are very powerful and a few a little eccentric. She has also travelled to some of the remotest parts of our planet to gain a deeper understanding of how food is transported.
Her insights into the environmental impact of food transportation are very thought provoking and not at all predictable.
This book is an unexpected gem. Murray writes with energy, enthusiasm and empathy. I thoroughly recommend it.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Information made painless by entertainment, 29 May 2007
She writes so well and entertainingly one does not realise just how much information is being packed into the book. That is unless you come across surprises like the way some food is transported gratuitously across half world just for packaging, or interesting details like the early preservation of food in champagne bottles. She ranges so widely and has - like a good journalist - done such extensive rsearch that there is something startling or stimulating on almost every page. I rate this book very highly for fun and education.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book has changed the way I decide about what to buy., 18 Jan 2008
One of the choices that we are faced with, when shopping for food, is whether to buy produce that has been shipped long distances. For instance, is it better to buy organic from africa, or to buy local produce that is not organic. To take another example, which is more environmentally friendly, salad grown in greenhouses in the UK, or airfreighted in from overseas?
I bought this book because I assumed that it would support my prejudices, give weight to my arguments with suitable quotes, and also help me unpick some of these more difficult ethical issues. As it turns out, this is not a book of polemic or of diatribe. Instead, it is a balanced look at the history, politics, sociology and development of the journeys of food. The research is often first hand, easy to read but clearly backed up with in-depth knowledge and understanding.
The book is structured chapter by chapter on the contents of an imaginary shopping basket. Each item is used to explore one aspect of food transport technology. The issues are analysed carefully, and in context, and then discussed.
Sarah Murray does not try to bend her facts to come down on one side of any issue or the other. There is no ranting, no moral outrage here. Since this was what I had been expecting, initially I was a little bemused. However, her facts are so neatly presented, it is possible to build up a good understanding of the food transport industry. It is only towards the end that she brings all her themes together to discuss their relative importance.
Her last chapter is masterful. From all that had gone before, and her even-handed collection and analysis of facts, she draws her conclusions skillfully. She also allows the reader freedom to think about their own attitudes and how they might influence her conclusions. For me, it was enlightening to realise that the carbon footprint of a drive to a supermarket is much greater than the freighting of the food. Taking a slightly wider perspective, and looking at the impact of our lifestyles, it is the way we heat and light our houses that is the biggest energy issue. For food, she has made it clearer to me that the political and sociological impact of importation is a very powerful driver of moral choice.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand more about the incredible journeys our food has taken.
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