Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World by Ha-Joon Chang – Review

Ha-Joon Chang’s creative novel on the economy uses his contagious love for food, its history, and its cultural significance, as an anecdotal springboard to supplement discussions on political and economic theory.

In his own words, the book is the “digesting, mixing and fusing different economic theories that help me understand how our world is being run.” It is witty, personal, and conversational. His food stories, he says, are a bit like the ice cream that your parents might use to bribe you to eat your vegetables. The vegetables in the metaphor are neglected economic theories, political and philosophical implications of economic policies, and realistic alternatives to current economic policies (both real and imagined). He serves them all in a digestible text divided into ingredients and flavours - each related to an area of economics he wishes to explore. Relations and links are found in history, government interventions, production processes and origin countries. 

He uses his chapters (Garlic, Strawberry, Chocolate and so on) to engage in dialogue surrounding the history or nature of food, and seamlessly blends this with a country’s past or current governmental interventions and economic history. The links are sometimes tenuous, and I often wondered where he was going with some of the anecdotes, but this keeps you on your toes and does not lull you into complacency. In this sense, the way the text is structured is experimental and takes a bit of getting used to – but once you are on board with the rhythm, the book is engaging and fast-paced.

Whether he is using Anchovy to discuss technological innovations its ability to overcome geographical or natural restrictions – threatening origin countries of raw goods, or Prawn - or Shrimp? to explain the Infant Industry argument, the text keeps you engaged as it blends history, culture, maths, and theory.

An example of the tone and rhythm of the book is his use of ‘Chilli Scales’ in restaurants to explore invisible labour, and racial and gender divides. A no-chilli dish, he explains, in a restaurant where the cuisine is spicey, still contains chillis (much to his friend's confusion.) The chillis in the dish are taken for granted and seen as a base level, thus, they become invisible. This is comparable to the labour of ‘key workers’ (who are not paid in relation to their essentiality), household work, care work, and cognitive labour - which are not part of GDP but are essential in ensuring the running of the wider economy.

Chang’s voice and personality ring through the text as he includes family recipes, autobiographical insights, and personal stories. In this sense, a reader understands that the book is a marriage between the author’s two passions; cooking and economics, and thus enjoys the book even more. It is a great thing to be able to combine multiple passions in one venture, and Ha-Joon Chang does this entertainingly and amusingly.