Eating the Amazon - by Nicholas Gill (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Reveals how what we eat is transforming the world's largest rainforest--and how Indigenous knowledge may yet help save it

"There's not a single person on the planet better to unpack the wild narrative of the Amazon, demystifying, exploring, and sharing the incredible bounty of this vital part of our planet." --Brian McGinn, executive producer of Chef's Table and Street Food

There is perhaps nowhere on Earth that has as many gastronomic possibilities as the Amazon rainforest. A laboratory of flavors that has given the world açaí, cacao, vanilla, chiles, cassava, and Brazil nuts, the Amazon also marches toward an unrecoverable tipping point. The same global appetite that brings Amazonian "superfoods" to market is also driving deforestation, monoculture farming, and ecological collapse at an unprecedented scale.

In Eating the Amazon, award-winning writer Nicholas Gill draws on more than two decades of reporting to guide readers through the Amazon's breathtaking landscapes, from the misty cloud forests along the Andean foothills to the steamy floodplains that flow into the Atlantic. He traces the Amazon's culinary roots through the region's complex history of exploitation and into the present day, where a movement is emerging for low-carbon, sustainable food systems that empower Indigenous communities and keep the forests standing and rivers free of pollution. Along the way, Gill documents the voices of Indigenous communities, foragers, cooks, biologists, fishermen, hunters, farmers, and local organizers whose lives are inseparable from the forest's rhythms.

Urgent and immersive, Eating the Amazon reframes how we think about food, climate, and consumption, asking whether the forces driving destruction might yet be harnessed for preservation.

About the Author

Nicholas Gill is a James Beard- and André Simon-nominated writer and photographer. He is the co-author of The Latin American Cookbook, among other works, and is a regular contributor to publications including The New York Times, Saveur, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Fool. He lives in Pound Ridge, New York.