*Edible Economics*

The author is Ha-Joon Chang, and the subtitle is A Hungry Economist Explains the World.  This is an economics of food book with a Korean emphasis, and arguing in favor of protectionism and industrial policy, in line with the author’s earlier works.  Here is one excerpt:

South Koreans went through a staggering 7.5kg of garlic per person per year between 2010 and 2017.  We hit a high in 2013 of 8.9kg.  That’s over ten times what the Italians consume (720g in 2013).  When it comes to garlic consumption, we Koreans make the Italians look like ‘dabblers’.  The French, ‘the’ garlic eaters to the British and the Americans, only manage a paltry 200g per year (in 2017) — not even 3% of that of the Koreans.

Chang does note that the Korean figure also includes a lot of garlic used to make stocks and then (in part) not consumed.