Taras Grescoe

Citing cultural biases against mass transportation, the award-winning author of The Devil's Picnic evaluates his status as a lifelong public transportation passenger while making predictions about an imminent transportation revolution that he believes will coincide with a significant reduction in car ownership.

Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile

Straphanger

How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood

Bottomfeeder

"On the eve of WWII, the foreign-controlled port of Shanghai was the rendezvous for the twentieth century's most outlandish adventurers, all under the watchful eye of the fabulously wealthy Sir Victor Sassoon. Emily 'Mickey' Hahn was a legendary New Yorker journalist whose vivid writing played a crucial role in opening Western eyes to the realities of life in China. At the height of the Depression, Hahn arrived in Shanghai after a disappointing affair with an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter, convinced she will never love again. After checking in to Sassoon's glamorous Cathay Hotel, Hahn is absorbed into the social swirl of the expats drawn to pre-war China, among them Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Harold Acton, and a colourful gangster named Morris 'Two-Gun' Cohen. But when she meets Zau Sinmay, a Chinese poet from an illustrious family, she discovers the real Shanghai through his eyes: the city of rich colonials, triple agents, opium-smokers, displaced Chinese peasants, and increasingly desperate White Russian and Jewish refugees--places her innate curiosity will lead her to explore first hand. Danger lurks on the horizon, though, as the brutal Japanese occupation destroys the seductive world of pre-war Shanghai, paving the way for Mao Tse-tung's Communists rise to power"--

forbidden love and international intrigue in a doomed world

Shanghai grand

A journey into illicit pleasure the world over. From Norwegian moonshine to the pentobarbital sodium sipped by suicide tourists in Switzerland—and,, in between, baby eels killed by an infusion of tobacco, a garlicky Spanish stew of bull’s testicles, tea laced with cocaine, and malodorous French cheese—Taras Grescoe has written a travelogue of forbidden indulgences. As Grescoe crisscrosses the globe in pursuit of his quarry, he delves into questions of regional culture and repressive legislation—from the clandestine absinthe distillation in an obscure Swiss valley to the banning of poppy seed biscuits in Singapore—and launches into a philosophical investigation of what’s truly bizarre: how something as fundamental as the plants and foods we consume could be so vilified and demonized. An investigation into what thrills us, what terrifies us, and what would make us travel ten thousand miles and evade the local authorities, The Devil’s Picnic is a delicious and compelling expedition into the heart of vice and desire.

Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit

The Devil's Picnic

In the tradition of Michael Pollan, Anthony Bourdain, and Mark Bittman, an exciting and globe-trotting account of ancient cuisines--from Neolithic wines to ancient Roman fish sauce--and why reviving the foods of the past is the key to saving the future. Many of us are worried (or at least we should be) about the impacts of globalization, pollution, and biotechnology on our diets. Whether it's monoculture crops, hormone-fed beef, or high-fructose corn syrup, industrially-produced foods have troubling consequences for us and the planet. But as culinary diversity diminishes, many people are looking to a surprising place to safeguard the future: into the past. The Lost Supper explores an idea that is quickly spreading among restaurateurs, food producers, scientists, and gastronomes around the world: that the key to healthy and sustainable eating lies not in looking forward, but in looking back to the foods that have sustained us through our half-million-year existence as a species. Acclaimed author Taras Grescoe introduces readers to the surprising and forgotten flavors whose revival is captivating food-lovers around the world: ancient sourdough bread last baked by Egyptian pharaohs; raw-milk farmhouse cheese from critically endangered British dairy cattle; ham from Spanish pata negra pigs that have been foraging on acorns on a secluded island since before the United States was a nation; and Neolithic wines from long-lost grapes uniquely capable of resisting quickly-evolving pests and modern pathogens. From Ancient Roman fish sauce to Aztec caviar to the long-thought-extinct silphium, The Lost Supper is a deep dive into the latest frontier of global gastronomy--the archaeology of taste. Through vivid writing, history, and first-hand culinary experience, Grescoe sets out a provocative case: in order to save these foods, he argues, we've got to eat them. Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past

The Lost Supper

Winner of the 2000 Quebec Writers' Federation First Book Award and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction A hip, enlightening portrait of a place most Canadians find baffling: Quebec without the politics. Why do three million Quebecers tune in the same absurd sitcom every week? How did they get the nickname "pepsis"? Why does Celine Dion put on a down-home accent when she returns to her home province? For referendum-weary English Canadians, Quebec is an enigma wrapped in a yawn. Taras Grescoe treats the province as an exotic destination. He takes readers onto the shuffleboard courts of Florida, to a francophone country-and-western festival in rural Mauricie, to the café tables of expatriate Quebecers in Paris. He deconstructs a Montreal Canadiens hockey game, explores the stunning diversity of Quebec’s newspapers, and dismantles Bombardier snowmobiles. En route, he meets Mohawk Warriors, Yiddish-speaking French Canadians, and the UFO-obsessed followers of Raël. Informed and incisive, Sacré Blues explores the heart of contemporary Quebec: its love-hate relationship with France and the United States; the dance, theatre, and literary productions celebrated in Europe but little known here; its fears about distinctness on an increasingly uniform continent. Along the way we meet such Quebec residents as the playwright Michel Tremblay and the novelist Neil Bissoondath, Teleglobe CEO Charles Sirois and the arctic explorer Bernard Voyer, the foul-mouthed columnist Pierre Foglia and the esteemed philosopher Charles Taylor. Sacré Blues serves up a spicy, irreverent, inside view of this unique and little-known part of North America. With side orders of poutine, maple syrup, and Vachon snack cakes. And scarcely a mention of Lucien Bouchard. From the Hardcover edition.

An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec

Sacre Blues

Dividing his sensibilities between Epicureanism and ethics, Taras Grescoe set out on a nine-month, world-wide search for a delicious-and humane-plate of seafood. Along the way, he explains the cultural and commercial implications of fish production on our environment, our health, and our seas. At once entertaining and illuminating, Bottomfeeder is a thoroughly enjoyable narrative about the world's cuisines and an examination of the fishing and farming practices we take too easily for granted.

Winner of the 2000 Quebec Writers' Federation First Book Award and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction A hip, enlightening portrait of a place most Canadians find baffling: Quebec without the politics. Why do three million Quebecers tune in the same absurd sitcom every week? How did they get the nickname "pepsis"? Why does Celine Dion put on a down-home accent when she returns to her home province? For referendum-weary English Canadians, Quebec is an enigma wrapped in a yawn. Taras Grescoe treats the province as an exotic destination. He takes readers onto the shuffleboard courts of Florida, to a francophone country-and-western festival in rural Mauricie, to the caf� tables of expatriate Quebecers in Paris. He deconstructs a Montreal Canadiens hockey game, explores the stunning diversity of Quebec's newspapers, and dismantles Bombardier snowmobiles. En route, he meets Mohawk Warriors, Yiddish-speaking French Canadians, and the UFO-obsessed followers of Ra�l. Informed and incisive, Sacr� Blues explores the heart of contemporary Quebec: its love-hate relationship with France and the United States; the dance, theatre, and literary productions celebrated in Europe but little known here; its fears about distinctness on an increasingly uniform continent. Along the way we meet such Quebec residents as the playwright Michel Tremblay and the novelist Neil Bissoondath, Teleglobe CEO Charles Sirois and the arctic explorer Bernard Voyer, the foul-mouthed columnist Pierre Foglia and the esteemed philosopher Charles Taylor. Sacr� Blues serves up a spicy, irreverent, inside view of this unique and little-known part of North America. With side orders of poutine, maple syrup, and Vachon snack cakes. And scarcely a mention of Lucien Bouchard.

Sacré Blues

Never in history have we seemed to have such global freedom, such an opportunity to indulge our wildest tastes. We think we live in a time of unprecedented choice. But as Taras Grescoe discovers, this is just an illusion. In this witty expose our intrepid author goes in search of the things that the rulers of the world will punish you for trying – all the time asking the question: why, in ostensibly free states, should we be criminalized for behaviour that concerns no one but ourselves? In a travelogue that takes in Swiss absinthe, Cuban cigars, Bolivian coca tea and stinking French cheese, Taras Grescoe drinks, smokes and eats his way towards some answers. Fun, philosophical, and unafraid of the big questions, this is a journey for free-thinkers, not the faint-hearted. As insightful and outraged as Fast Food Nation and as funny and astute as Dude, Where’s My Country? , The Devil’s Picnic is a feast for anyone who has ever made a stand for personal liberty.

A Tour of Everything the Governments of the World Don't Want You to Try

Taras Grescoe embarks on a journey into the forbidden as he searches for the world's taboo indulgences.

Travels Through the Underworld of Food and Drink

An investigation into what thrills us, what terrifies us, and what would make us travel ten thousand miles and evade the local authorities, The Devil's Picnic is a delicious and compelling expedition into the heart of vice and desire. Taras Grescoe is the author of two books, one of which, Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec, was shortlisted for the Writers' Trust Award and was a national bestseller in Canada. His work appears in major publications all over the US, the UK and Canada. "Vivid and entertaining."-New York Times "[Grescoe] spends a year in seven countries, seeking out such delicacies as Epoisses cheese, which smells so bad it's said to have been banned from the Paris Metro; the author writes fondly that it makes 'Gorgonzola smell like Velveeta.'...He eats bulls' testicles in Madrid and visits an absinthe distillery in Switzerland. You feel hung over just reading the thing-guilty, implicated and strangely hungry."-Los Angeles Times Also available: HC ISBN: 1-58234-429-9 ISBN-13 978-1-58234-429-4 $24.95

On the eve of the Second World War, the foreign-controlled port of Shanghai was the rendezvous for the twentieth century's most outlandish adventurers, all under the watchful eye of the illustrious Sir Victor Sassoon. Emily 'Mickey' Hahn arrived there at the height of the Depression. A legendary New Yorker journalist, Hahn's vivid writing would play a crucial role in opening Western eyes to the realities of life in China. But on reaching Shanghai, Hahn was nursing a broken heart after a disappointing affair with an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter; she was convinced she would never love again. Checking in to Sassoon's glittering Cathay Hotel, Hahn was absorbed into the social swirl of the expats drawn to pre-war China, among them Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Harold Acton and the colourful gangster Morris 'Two-Gun' Cohen. But when she met Zau Sinmay, a Chinese poet from an illustrious family, she discovered the real Shanghai through his eyes: the city of rich colonials, triple agents, opium-smokers, displaced Chinese peasants, and increasingly desperate White Russian and Jewish refugees - a place her innate curiosity led her to explore first hand. Danger lurked on the horizon, though, as the brutal Japanese occupation destroyed the seductive world of pre-war Shanghai, paving the way for Mao Tse-tung and the Communists' rise to power. A compelling tale of fatal glamour and forbidden love, Shanghai Grand is their story, meticulously researched and vividly told.

Forbidden Love and International Intrigue on the Eve of the Second World War

Shanghai Grand

Award-winning journalist Taras Grescoe has written books that have changed how we look at illicit food and other substances (The Devil’s Picnic), how we think about the world’s seafood (Bottomfeeder), and how we as commuters hit the road (Straphanger). The Devil’s Picnic is a feast like no other: start with an aperitif of powerful Norwegian moonshine; nibble on a French raw-milk cheese that can carry brain-swelling bacteria; sip some Bolivian cocaine tea and Swiss absinthe; finish off with a puff of a Cuban cigar in a Californian bar. Grescoe travels the world sampling these and other substances that have been legally banned and publicly demonized. Bottomfeeder is a seafood lover’s round-the-world quest for a truly decent meal. From strip-mall Red Lobsters to the rotary sushi bars of Tokyo, Grescoe travels to the end of the seafood supply chain and back to discover how out-of-control pollution, unregulated fishing practices, and global warming are affecting the fish that end up on our plates. In Straphanger, Grescoe hits the commuter road in a global quest to understand and illuminate the challenges of the post-automobile age. Straphanger is not just another attack on automobiles and suburban sprawl but one of the most entertaining and thorough examinations of global car culture yet written, and an empowering tool kit for anybody looking for alternatives to a car-based lifestyle.

The Devil's Picnic, Bottomfeeder, and Straphanger

Taras Grescoe Three-Book Bundle

There’s simply no limit to the sins people will commit for a tasty meal. The Japanese are notorious for their trade in bluefin tuna, while newlyweds in Bangkok, Shanghai and Singapore devour a gelatinous soup made from poached abalone and fins hacked from living sharks. But surely there’s no need for you to feel bad about ordering sea bass in a London restaurant? Unless, of course, you consider that you may well be enjoying one of the very last members of the species. In Dead Seas we follow acclaimed journalist Taras Grescoe on a year-long, round-the-world trip, as he eats his way from the top to the bottom of the food chain with one purpose in mind: to find out whether he can continue to eat such delicacies in good conscience. As well as painting a vivid and often hilarious picture of the fascinating people Taras encounters, Dead Seas explores the impact we are having on sea life by overfishing and draws our attention to some of the ethical choices we can make. At a time when many of the fish we take for granted are on the verge of extinction, we need to face the fact that very soon jellyfish sandwiches may be all that is left for us to eat.

How the fish on our plates is killing our planet

Dead Seas

“The End of Elsewhere is a kind of post-millennium Heart of Darkness, with Grescoe's Marlowe on the trail of a hypothetical camera-toting, Hawaiian-shirted Kurtz . . . A powerful indictment of contemporary tourism and, more fundamentally, it's a cry against the West's exploitation of the Third world in the era of globalization”—Quill & Quire Witty and provocative, The End of Elsewhere is a riotous on-the-road odyssey and a brilliant history of tourism. It will be treasured by anyone who has been conned by 'authentic' travel. Taras Grescoe has written articles on travel for Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic Travelerand The New York Times. His first book Sacré Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec won numerous awards in Canada. He lives in Montreal.

Travels Among the Tourists

The End of Elsewhere

Whoever you are, you are sure to be a severe critic of Fascism, and you must feel the servile shame. But even you are responsible for your inaction. Do not seek to justify yourself with the illusion that there is nothing to be done. That is not true. Every person of courage and honour is quietly working for a free Italy. Even if you do not want to join us, there are still TEN THINGS which you can do. You can, and therefore you must. These unsayable words, printed on leaflets that rained down on Mussolini’s headquarters in the heart of Rome at the height of the dictator’s power, drive the central drama of Possess the Air. This is the story of freedom fighters who defied Italy’s despot by opposing the rising tide of populism and xenophobia. Chief among them: poet and aviator Lauro de Bosis, firstborn of an Italian aristocrat and a New Englander, who transformed himself into a modern Icarus and amazed the world as he risked his life in the skies to bring Il Duce down. Taras Grescoe’s inspiring story of resistance, risk, and sacrifice paints a portrait of heroes in the fight against authoritarianism. This is an essential biography for our time.

Taras Grescoe

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