The Last Sweet Bite (Michael Shaikh)

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.