Renewing the Food Traditions of North America is a dramatic call to recognize, celebrate, and conserve the great diversity of foods that give North America the distinctive culinary identity that reflects its multi-cultural heritage. It offers us rich natural and cultural histories as well as recipes and folk traditions associated with one hundred of the rarest food plants and animals in North America. In doing so, it reminds us that what we choose to eat can either conserve or deplete the cornucopia of our continent. In addition, it offers a eulogy to a once-common game food that has gone extinct--the passenger pigeon--to underscore how rapidly a food species can be depleted if its habitat is destroyed and harvesting pressures are ignored. Rather than dwelling on the tragic losses, it highlights the success stories of food recovery, habitat restoration, and market revitalization which chefs, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and foresters have recently achieved. Through such food parables, editor Nabhan and his colleagues build a persuasive argument for eater-based conservation. Implementing that call to action, the Renewing America's Food Tradition collaborative involves some of the country's most inspiring and effective non-profit organizations in targeting hundreds of rare and neglected foods unique to North America for such restoration and recovery. They have been compiled into the first-ever comprehensive list of the wild and domesticated food varieties that are threatened or endangered in North America, including heirloom seeds, fruits, and nuts; heritage breeds of livestock and poultry; fish and game; and wild-foraged plants. In addition, this book offers atool-kit to engage those who wish to personally support and participate in such recoveries, and a list of food festivals held across the continent to honor and enjoy some of the country's most iconic foods, from crab cakes to maple syrup and file gumbo. Organized by food nations named for the ecological and cultural keystone foods of each region--Salmon Nation, Bison Nation, Chile Pepper Nation, Cornbread Nation, among others--this book offers you an altogether fresh perspective on the culinary traditions of North America. After savoring this book, you will never look at the geography of food--or the necessity of conserving the biocultural foundation of culinary diversity--the same way again.