This book is about human genetic diversity interacting with diverse cultural traditions of food-getting, food preparation, and food consumption. Nabhan explores the dynamic connections between our culinary predilections, our genes, the diets of our ancestors, and the places that our ancestral cultures called home for extended periods of time.

This book is about human genetic diversity interacting with the diverse cultural traditions of food-getting, food preparation, and food consumption. Nabhan explores the dynamic connections between our culinary predilections, our genes, the diets of our ancestors, and the places that our ancestral cultures called home for extended periods of time. In each chapter, he tells the story of a particular place (Crete, Java, Hawaii, etc.) and asks questions: How do we explain how diets and our genetic identity evolved and are attached to place? What role does "place" have in our evolved diet?.