Sarah Lohman on Saving America’s Endangered Foods

The Empress date. The Burbank tomato. The Sebastopol Gravenstein apple. Halali’i sugar cane. These are among hundreds of foods grown in the United States on the “Ark of Taste,” a list of endangered foods curated by Slow Foods International. For her new book “Endangered Eating,” culinary historian Sarah Lohman journeyed across the country to study some of the rare foods on the Ark, interviewing the farmers, activists, and scientists pioneering their resurgence. We talk to Lohman about the American heirloom crops and culinary traditions that are disappearing and what we can all do to help preserve them.