Today the things we eat and drink have crossed oceans, continents, and even airspace before reaching the dinner table. The complex systems and technologies devised throughout the centuries to deliver our food supply reveal surprising things about politics, culture, economies--and our appetites. In Mumbai, India's chaotic commercial capital, men use local trains, bicycles, and their feet to transport more than 170,000 lunches a day from housewives to their husbands, with almost no mix-ups. Modern shipping containers allow companies to send frozen salmon to China, where it can be cheaply...

"Not only a fascinating travelogue but also a personal meditation on loss and fate...There is a wealth to discover within these pages."--The Economist
Journalist Sarah Murray never gave much thought to what might ultimately happen to her remains--until her father died. Puzzled by the choices he made about the disposal of his "organic matter," she embarks on a series of journeys to discover how death is commemorated in different cultures. Her travels lead her to discover everything from a Czech chandelier of human bones and a weeping ceremony in Iran to a Philippine village where...