Hello I'm Sheila Dylan and welcome to this BBC download of the Food Program.

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We've been on something of a race against time because earlier this year we set out to record the stories of foods around the world facing extinction, a project that's provided some dramatic

accounts from places often remote and hard to reach. We've explored the depths of Anatolian caves where for centuries Turkish

Shepherds have hidden a special cheese and all of a sudden you start going

down with the elevator and from this overwhelming light that was surrounding you suddenly

are into a black environment, dark, very dark.

And we ventured into the dense forests of Sierra Leone, where tribes continue to search for an energy-giving snack, the Kolarnut.

The men of the village go into the jungle with very, sticks and they use them to hook the stem of the pond and tear it down from the canopy.

The stories we've recorded all come from The Ark of Taste, a growing list of more than 2,000 ingredients from 100 different countries,

a catalogue that captures endangered foods and tells the story of a disappearing world.

Created by the international slow food movement, a food NGO founded in Italy 30 years ago,

the ARC project is now backed by the United Nations as well

as the European Union, because as the biblical reference indicates, this Arc is on a mission to prevent extinction and protect biodiversity.

We came across many of these stories and ingredients inside a giant exhibition hall in Turin last year, a spectacular assembly of fruits and

vegetables, seeds and beans and much, much more, a site I witnessed along with Jamie Oliver.

Well, right now we're in the area called the Arca del Gustavo, which is really the arc of, you know, foods that

are dying, in threat of dying dying so everything in front of us from

squashes to seeds to fruits to herbs to breads to certain salamis and cakes things that aren't being made anymore, things that are being lost.

As the world continues in its sort of 40-50 year journey into sort of convenience. This whole event is about, you know,

...