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The atlas

Normandy runs on butter and cider, the Southwest on duck fat, Alsace on pork, beer and cabbage. All three are France. Each volume takes one food world and starts with the land and the trade. Then every dish, as the tradition cooks it and as a modern chef would change it.

Ingredients: 466 entries

West Africa Central Africa The Horn North Africa East Africa and the Islands Southern Africa The Levant and Anatolia The Gulf and Arabia Persia and the Caucasus The Indian subcontinent The Sinosphere Mainland Southeast Asia Maritime Southeast Asia Korea and Japan Central Asia and the steppe The Mediterranean Iberia France and the Alps Central Europe The Nordics and the Baltic The Slavic east and the Balkans Britain and Ireland Mesoamerica The Caribbean The Andes Amazonia The Southern Cone North America Mainland Brazil Aotearoa and Australia Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia

The food worlds the atlas has written, drawn without borders. Every one is in the list below.

Africa

Fifty four countries and no single cuisine. The cooking follows the land: the palm coast, the Congo basin, the highland ferments, the Nile and the Sahara, the monsoon shore, the maize south.

22 volumes · 244 dishes

West Africa

The Atlantic coast, the forest belt and the palm

Central Africa

The Congo basin and the seed thickeners

The Horn

Highland ferments and the Red Sea trade

North Africa

The Mediterranean, the Nile and the Sahara

East Africa and the Islands

The Indian Ocean monsoon world

Southern Africa

Maize, relish and the most layered plate

Asia

The largest region in the atlas, from the Levant to the Sinosphere: yoghurt and dried lime, sour fruit, fish sauce, coconut, dashi, steppe mutton.

61 volumes · 582 dishes

The Levant and Anatolia

Wheat, olive, yoghurt and the mezze table

The Gulf and Arabia

Rice, dates, dried lime and the monsoon trade

Persia and the Caucasus

Rice as craft, sour fruit as seasoning

The Indian subcontinent

Too large to be one region. Will need splitting.

The Sinosphere

Likewise. Eight cuisines at least, not one.

Mainland Southeast Asia

Rice, fish sauce and raw herbs across four borders

Maritime Southeast Asia

Coconut, chilli and the spice islands

Korea and Japan

Ferment, dashi and the discipline of restraint

Central Asia and the steppe

Wheat, mutton and the noodle road

Europe

The Mediterranean eats as one food world under many flags. The Nordic kitchen began with preserving, and the Slavic east is sour, smoked and fermented.

39 volumes · 383 dishes

The Mediterranean

One food world, many flags

Iberia

The Atlantic edge, cured pork and the Moorish inheritance

France and the Alps

Not one cuisine. Alsace and Provence share only a border.

Central Europe

Pork, cabbage, paprika and the long winter

The Nordics and the Baltic

Preserving as the founding technique

The Slavic east and the Balkans

Sour, smoked and fermented

Britain and Ireland

Home ground, and the one that gets the hardest look

The Americas

Mesoamerica, the Andes and Amazonia are three unrelated food worlds on one landmass: nixtamal and chilli, potato and altitude, cassava and a forest larder barely written down.

45 volumes · 454 dishes

Mesoamerica

Nixtamal, chilli and the oldest maize technology

The Caribbean

Indigenous, African, Indian and indenture on one plate

The Andes

Potato, quinoa, altitude and freeze drying

Amazonia

Cassava again, and a forest larder barely written down

The Southern Cone

Beef, fire and the Italian migration

North America

Regional cuisines, not one. Indigenous foodways first.

Mainland Brazil

Dendê, cattle interior, cerrado dairy and coffee, not one country-sized cuisine

Oceania and the Pacific

Aboriginal and Māori foodways each get a volume of their own, ahead of the settler kitchens. Beyond them, the earth oven, taro and the largest ocean on earth.

14 volumes · 120 dishes

Aotearoa and Australia

Maori and Aboriginal foodways as the subject, not the garnish

Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia

The earth oven, taro and the largest ocean