Michael Shaikh — The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found - with Sarah Yager

War changes every part of human culture: art, education, music, politics. Why should food be any different? For nearly twenty years, Michael Shaikh's job was investigating human rights abuses in conflict zones. Early on, he noticed how war not only changed the lives of victims and their societies, it also unexpectedly changed the way they ate, forcing people to alter their recipes or even stop cooking altogether, threatening the very survival of ancient dishes.A groundbreaking combination of travel writing, memoir, and cookbook, The Last Sweet Bite uncovers how humanity's appetite for violence shapes what's on our plate. Animated by touching personal interviews, original reporting, and extraordinary recipes from modern-day conflict zones across the globe, Shaikh reveals the stories of how genocide, occupation, and civil war can disappear treasured recipes, but also introduces us to the extraordinary yet overlooked home cooks and human rights activists trying to save them. From a sprawling refugee camp in Bangladesh and a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka to the drug wars in the Andes and the enduring effects of America's westward expansion, Shaikh highlights resilient diasporic communities refusing to let their culinary heritage become another casualty of war.Much of what we eat today or buy in a market has been shaped by violence; in some form, someone's history and politics is on the dinner table. The Last Sweet Bite aims to tell us how it got there. Weaving together histories of food, migration, human rights, and recipes, Shaikh shows us how reclaiming lost cuisines is not just a form of resistance and hope but also how cooking can be a strategy for survival during trying times.Michael Shaikh is a writer and human rights investigator who has worked for twenty years in areas marred by political crisis and armed conflict. He has worked at Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, the Center for Civilians in Conflict, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the New York City Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. Michael is on the board of Adi Magazine. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he lives in New York City.Shaikh is in conversation with Sarah Yager, the Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, and leads the organization’s engagement with the United States government on global human rights issues. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she was the first senior advisor on human rights in the Chairman’s Office at The Joint Staff of the U.S. Department of Defense and, prior, served as deputy chief of staff for policy at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations under Ambassador Samantha Power. For nearly a decade Sarah was executive director of Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), leading efforts to advise warring parties on civilian protection and responsible use of force. She has worked extensively with the U.S. military and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, CAR, Burma, and elsewhere. Sarah was a member of the Clinton Administration’s White House AIDS Policy team, a senior associate at West Wing Writers, and consulted for Human Rights Watch, Ford Foundation, the William J. Clinton Foundation, and International Committee of the Red Cross. She was a senior fellow on security issues at Open Society Foundations and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Sarah holds degrees from Georgetown and Columbia Universities, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board director at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593442845?ic_referral=nBMyDbBm1b8Onmq1GuN0RPiMxPFXTCn57oQjwUwOn80wMwggZS9pVu0Q4_-oCLQpt9IO3RXyRqVxyNnBGfTcuTGwMH32_2BYB-qPplh_gD1giABFw7tkHsW3LJMKAdbmivJUNHs