THRIVING after the FALL
Book One FEASTING after the FALL
FEASTING after the FALL
Berlin Edition

Book One of THRIVING after the FALL · The table

FEASTING after the FALL

How a household, a street and a village rebuild the dinner table after the supply chains break, from the ore in the rubble to the candle on the cloth.

Status
Hardcover in proof
Format
Hardcover, 6 x 9 in, 508 pages
Edition
Berlin Edition
Place
Berlin and Brandenburg
ISBN
9798177418742
Imprint
Independently published

Directed and produced by Thomas Schindler. Written by an LLM with the support of humanity.

Every object on your dinner table is the last link of a chain some ten thousand hands long. Behind the salt lies a mine, behind the fork a steel mill, behind the plate a kiln. This book is the story of what happens when that chain breaks, and of how a family, a street and a village put the table back together, link by link, from the ore in the rubble to the candle on the cloth, until there is once again something worth calling dinner.

It is a cultural history of the future, warm, learned and a little mischievous, and it is grounded at every step in numbers you can build with: four million kilocalories a year for a family of four, a hectare and a half of their own ground, sixteen Ster of beech for the fire. Every chapter opens on the body, widens into history, says plainly how far its sources can be trusted, and ends at the bench with weights, temperatures and what it looks like when it goes wrong.

The argument is simple and slightly heretical. Survival is not the goal. The goal is the feast. A community that can feed itself has restarted its metabolism. A community that can once again make a ragù that simmers for four hours, or a wheel of cheese that ripens for a year, has restarted its civilisation. The kitchen is where the Fall ends.

Berlin and the sand of Brandenburg are the worked example: one place, fully.

Contents

  1. Preface: Setting the Table2,525 words · 3 rows

I Fire and Iron

  1. 1The Rhythm of the Hearththe hearth is the heartbeat of the house · body6,091 words · 4 protocols · 40 rows, 8 for safety
  2. 2The City Is a Minethe city is a mine · mind7,456 words · 5 protocols · 47 rows, 12 for safety
  3. 3The Knifetemper · soul7,502 words · 6 protocols · 50 rows, 10 for safety
  4. 4Copper, Wood and Stonememory · mind8,721 words · 6 protocols · 54 rows, 14 for safety

II Soil and Seed

  1. 5Making Groundhunger · body8,772 words · 6 protocols · 52 rows, 12 for safety
  2. 6The Five-Year Conversationconversation · mind13,340 words · 9 protocols · 77 rows, 12 for safety
  3. 7The Orchard and the Wildthe promise · soul8,102 words · 6 protocols · 50 rows, 12 for safety

III The Animals

  1. 8The Cow, the Pig and the Henthe borrowed stomach · body14,969 words · 10 protocols · 80 rows, 20 for safety
  2. 9The Hardest Chapterattention · mind14,622 words · 9 protocols · 62 rows, 22 for safety
  3. 10The Watertrust · soul13,213 words · 8 protocols · 58 rows, 20 for safety

IV Time

  1. 11Saltthe body is brine · body6,772 words · 3 protocols · 24 rows, 7 for safety
  2. 12Cold and Darksleep · body5,770 words · 5 protocols · 26 rows, 8 for safety
  3. 13Sourpatience · mind5,459 words · 4 protocols · 15 rows, 4 for safety
  4. 14Milk into Cheesemilk grown up · body7,282 words · 5 protocols · 43 rows, 10 for safety
  5. 15Drinkthe raised cup · soul7,480 words · 5 protocols · 52 rows, 12 for safety

V The Feast

  1. 16The RepertoirebodyNot yet written
  2. 17The Tablethe peace · soul11,744 words · 9 protocols · 60 rows, 15 for safety
  3. 18The Villagethe reckoning · mind9,806 words · 6 protocols · 46 rows, 8 for safety
  1. Coda: Does It Work?Not yet written

The book in figures

159,626words drafted
17 of 18chapters written
159research documents3,218pages of research839claims in the log206marked for safety90dishes in The Menu161plates drawn

The Menu and the Evening

The Menu

Everything the book teaches to cook, drink and keep, by course. The repertoire is the book's fence: a craft that serves none of these dishes, nor the table they are served on, goes to the Workshop instead.

90 dishes in 11 courses

The Evening

The feast the book is written towards, served in the coda: eleven courses, chosen so that every part of the book is on the table and no course repeats a technique. The menu is provisional.

11 courses

The plates

161 plates, drawn for the book. See them all.

Everything on the table is the last link of a long chain. Not one of the hands along it is ours.
Plate 00-01 Everything on the table is the last link of a long chain. Not one of the hands along it is ours.
The fire was banked at night under its own ash and woken in the morning with a breath. The house kept time by it.
Plate 01-01 The fire was banked at night under its own ash and woken in the morning with a breath. The house kept time by it.
Rebar in the rubble, about a kilogram for the length of a forearm. There is more of it under our feet than there is gold in every vault on earth.
Plate 02-01 Rebar in the rubble, about a kilogram for the length of a forearm. There is more of it under our feet than there is gold in every vault on earth.
The thumb goes across the edge, never along it. On a sharp knife it catches at once. On this one it slides.
Plate 03-01 The thumb goes across the edge, never along it. On a sharp knife it catches at once. On this one it slides.
One side of the bowl is worn flat where twenty years of the same hand pressed it to the pot. The wood remembers.
Plate 04-01 One side of the bowl is worn flat where twenty years of the same hand pressed it to the pot. The wood remembers.
A handful of Brandenburg sand will not hold a shape. What the ice left twelve thousand years ago runs through the fingers and leaves only grey dust on the palm.
Plate 05-01 A handful of Brandenburg sand will not hold a shape. What the ice left twelve thousand years ago runs through the fingers and leaves only grey dust on the palm.