All the foods are organised thematically in five parts, which keeps them organised enough because sometimes the author tends to wander around a bit. Using foodstuffs that go from meat (anchovy, beef, chicken, prawn) to veggies (carrot, okra), nuts (acorn) and fruit (banana, strawberry), to processed food (noodles) and finally drinks & desserts (Coca-Cola, chocolate), as conversation starters, each of the chapters dedicated to a given foodstuff will teach you something about economics.
That makes it so very understandable, put so simply, than the complex sociological and economical theories most of us would find labyrinthine at best and boring or dry at worst. Taking the example of the humble anchovy, he tells us how the raw materials based economies were ruined by the surge of synthetic substitutes, as happened to guano, rubber, and dyes, on which economies such as Peru's, Brazil's and Guatemala's were dependent on to prosper, and how this can happen again (and why). This book isn't about the economy of food production from planting to the market's shelf but about worldwide economics explained through food, a clever concept that makes economics accessible for the layperson.īeing one of the laypeople who thinks of economy only when deciding between a 0.9 kg can or a 300 g can of anchovies in olive oil on a given run to the supermarket, I appreciated how Mr Chang used commonly eaten and popular foodstuff across the world to explain economic theories, political-economic systems, processes, and even an economist's overview of world history from the recent past to the present. It shows that getting to grips with the economy is like learning a recipe: when we understand it, we can adapt and improve it-and better understand our world. Myth-busting, witty, and thought-provoking, Edible Economics serves up a feast of bold ideas about globalization, climate change, immigration, austerity, automation, and why carrots need not be orange. For Chang, chocolate is a lifelong addiction, but more exciting are the insights it offers into postindustrial knowledge economies and while okra makes Southern gumbo heart-meltingly smooth, it also speaks of capitalism’s entangled relationship with freedom. But this intellectual monoculture is bland and unhealthy.īestselling author and economist Ha-Joon Chang makes challenging economic ideas delicious by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world, using the diverse histories behind familiar food items to explore economic theory. Edible Economics brings the sort of creative fusion that spices up a great kitchen to the often too-disciplined subject of economicsįor decades, a single, free-market philosophy has dominated global economics.
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