While we are quick to celebrate the first person to achieve something, Eliot Stein notes that we rarely honor the last. In his book “Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive,” Stein travels to five continents to tell the stories of 10 artisans practicing ancient crafts. Sharing these cultural treasures, he asks what might we lose if these custodians prove to be the last.
Part travelogue, part memoir, his book unfolds crafts that flourished in an isolation virtually impossible to replicate today. These include the world’s rarest pasta, a bridge woven from grass, and soy sauce brewed following the original 700-year-old recipe. As he writes with the integrity of a journalist and the artfulness of a storyteller, Stein’s accounts express compassion, curiosity, and respect. He shares the experiences of each custodian in a manner that enables readers to appreciate the treasures rapidly disappearing from our world.
“When localism gives way to internationalism, we often lose the distinct vestiges that make our world so wonderfully diverse – and this global homogenization is happening before our eyes,” he observes.
One can be found in Sardinia where Stein meets Paola Abraini, one of only four women in the world who can properly make a pasta dish known as su filindeu, “the threads of God.” Composed of 256 individual strands of pasta, the finished dish is said to resemble stitched lace and is considered the rarest pasta in the world.
The recipe has been passed down to the women of one family for more than 300 years. The ingredients are no mystery – semolina flour, water, and salt. But it is the skill and the process that raises the dish to a work of art. Others have tried to replicate the techniques – including representatives of the Barilla company – but none is considered to have succeeded. Abraini has even been accused of altering the recipe to foil imitators. But, as Stein observes, “As with so many handmade wonders, the only ‘secret’ is in the sense of touch, an invisible instinct born from thousands of repetitions until it courses through her veins like memory.”
Process is also key to producing soy sauce faithful to the original 700-year-old recipe. Yasuo Yamamoto, a fifth-generation Japanese soy sauce brewer, has been working to educate people about the authentic taste of soy sauce. In short, the true flavor is nothing like that of the condiment most people know.
Authentic soy sauce must be brewed in a kioke, a cedar barrel. More than a vessel, the kioke provides the essential ingredient: The porous wood harbors millions of microbes that ferment the sauce, imparting a richer flavor than can be obtained any other way. Today, less than 1% of the world’s soy sauce is produced this way, although 75 years ago, almost all of it was. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the government was driven to rescue the nation’s economy. So officials directed companies to abandon the kioke and adopt steel vats, which produce what many consider to be an imitation.
Yamamoto has made it his life’s work to recapture the ancient methods and reintroduce the authentic sauce. His motives extend beyond the culinary. He cherishes the fact that soy sauce, the oldest condiment in the world, is woven into the history and identity of Japan.
Another custodian featured in the book is a Peruvian bridge master named Victoriano Arizapana, who is entrusted with overseeing the annual construction of a rope bridge woven from grass. For 500 years, members of the Inca nation created such bridges, which were strong enough to support a marching army. It’s estimated that there used to be 200 of these bridges spanning the Apurimac River in the Peruvian highlands. Today, there is one.
It was a picture of one of these bridges that first opened the ancient Inca civilization to the rest of the world. In the early 20th century, the explorer Hiram Bingham saw the image and set out in search of the bridge. He stumbled upon the abandoned Inca citadel, Machu Picchu, a site that has become far better known to the world. But some might consider the bridge to be the marvel.
Consistent with tradition, the 22-meter structure is rebuilt each year to ensure that it is safe. A three-day process, the construction involves 1,100 people who cut and braid blades of a strawlike plant, q’oya ichu, into cables as strong as steel. When the new bridge, pulled into place by teams working on opposite sides of the canyon, is complete, the old one is severed and is simply left to decompose.
Practically speaking, the bridge is not necessary. There are others in the area, made of modern steel and suitable for vehicles and pedestrians. But members of the community told Stein that they prefer to use the traditional bridge, feeling that it connects them to their ancestors and to the ancient culture. He observes how crafting it embodies the Inca peoples’ ethos: “fragile by themselves but invincible when they join forces.”
What will it take to preserve these treasures and is it even possible? The pastamaker Abraini wrestles with whether she should teach others how to make the rare dish. She tried for a while. There are even videos on YouTube for anyone who is curious, but the results become imitations, not unlike common soy sauce. In the book, Stein asks whether contemporary culture can even support such processes since cultures are no longer isolated in a manner that fosters such specialization. Modern “conveniences” like cellphones consume attention and time, drawing people away from traditional crafts.
But he also notes that endeavors like constructing the bridge require cooperation – people pulling equally on both sides to connect in a manner that will benefit all. Many would agree that the world needs more of that today.
