I haven't finished this book (I'm only on Chapter 4) but I thought I'd give you a preview of coming attractions.
First, let me say that I have never read Barbara Kingsolver's fiction. If I had, I imagine I'd come to this book with greater eagerness.
Secondly, I like food and I especially like my favorite things, but I am not a foodie. I'm not a gardener, either. Kingsolver is and she is passionate about it. She takes real aesthetic pleasure in the flavors of heirloom fruits and vegetables, and a visceral satisfaction in the seasons of the year, and visual delight in the colors and flowers of the vegetables she plants. As a result, as I slog through this book I feel like the one person at the party who doesn't know anyone else.
Kingsolver has something to say, and I respect that. Truthfully, without having something to say, what is the point? It's a didactic book, and meant to be one. To paraphrase Gertrude, this book has plenty of matter - not so much the art.
Kingsolver's trying to argue that the combination of industrial style farming, genetic engineering of plants for industrial farming, the loss of smaller family farms, and the way in which we city dwellers have lost touch with the source of our food and any knowledge about it threaten our food security. She's trying to argue that the situation is serious and the need to act is immediate, and that there are things that ordinary people can do, in feeding themselves, to improve the situation.
Her husband, a professor of environmental science at a Virginia college, argues that the amount of petroleum consumed to transport out of season produce dramatically raises it cost - a cost that is invisible to us and subsidized by our government.
Her family's experiment is presented as proof that folks can take matters into their own hands, and her account is meant to show, in part, how it can be done. After living in Tucson, Arizona, for many years, she and her husband move their family to his farm in Virginia. They spend a year eating only those things that they can grow themselves or purchase from folks living nearby, and this book is Kingsolver's account of that year.
In short, they eat in season, something many of us, with our hothouse tomatoes and raspberries in winter, do not do.
The story of the year that her family spent trying to eat food that they'd either grown themselves or purchased from nearby neighbors is a little short on drama. Plenty of passion when she talks about how the use of corn syrup in many of our foods has helped to fatten us as a nation at the same time that the year-round availability of most fruits and vegetables requires shipping long distances, and that the logistics of their shipping means they arrive at our table shorn of any flavor. This, at the same time that the profit-maximizing policies of seed companies like Monsanto have led to a greatly reduced biodiversity that, if allowed to continue, will likely lead to catastrophic crop failures and widespread famine in the developed world. (I don't think Kingsolver explicitly states that famine will definitely happen, but if you're Irish you know how the story ends.)
This is important stuff, and Kingsolver is committed and passionate, and I admire her, and I find that I need toothpicks to keep my eyelids open.
The chapters on "Molly Mooching" (a local name for morels, with recipes) and "Gratitude," are delightfully engaging, full of rich, descriptive writing and probably catnip for a foodie.
"Gratitude" opens with a Mother's Day gift to a neighbor, a tomato plant. Kingsolver reports that the recipient did not say thank you, and her family refrained from saying "You're welcome." This is because of a local belief that if you say "thank you," for a plant, the plant will die.
The type of tomato this was a variety called "Silver Fig" from the former Soviet Union.
The chapter continues with a section on the May planting, an arduous task begun before school starts in the morning and continued after school lets out until well after dark. More tomato varieties are described in loving detail. Kingsolver plants a Siberian variety, bred for its ability to ripen in a short summer, helping to ensure some early tomatoes.
In June, she's embarrassed when she plans to offer some of those Siberian tomatoes to a friend only to discover that her friend, living in western Massachusetts, already has some gargantuan tomatoes.
In this chapter, Kingsolver starts to talk about a practical problem: Americans have grown accustomed not just to eating out of season but to paying lower prices for factory-farm produced food that food produced by hand on smaller farms and sold at farmers' markets can be sold for.
But Kingsolver argues that the price differential is not enough to discourage low-income food consumers and that in fact, holders of food subsidy vouchers can use them at farmers' markets. I didn't know this, and it's a big revelation to me. In fact, there are foodmobile buses - Kingsolver mentions one in Tennessee and I know of one in Austin - that take fresh produce to urban neighborhoods. I am intrigued and wonder if it is really possible for there to be a successful farmers' market in an area that's not very affluent.
The book ends on the happiest of notes, as the author and her youngest daughter celebrate the birth of their first turkey chicks on the farm, a joyous event and the realization of the author's dream to help preserve vintage varieties of turkey.
If you'd like to know more about Barbara Kingsolver's experiment, her family, or resources for learning more about Slow Food International or Slow Food USA, there's a special website (with recipes!) at http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/
You can find out about Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste here: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/details/ark_of_taste/
First, let me say that I have never read Barbara Kingsolver's fiction. If I had, I imagine I'd come to this book with greater eagerness.
Secondly, I like food and I especially like my favorite things, but I am not a foodie. I'm not a gardener, either. Kingsolver is and she is passionate about it. She takes real aesthetic pleasure in the flavors of heirloom fruits and vegetables, and a visceral satisfaction in the seasons of the year, and visual delight in the colors and flowers of the vegetables she plants. As a result, as I slog through this book I feel like the one person at the party who doesn't know anyone else.
Kingsolver has something to say, and I respect that. Truthfully, without having something to say, what is the point? It's a didactic book, and meant to be one. To paraphrase Gertrude, this book has plenty of matter - not so much the art.
Kingsolver's trying to argue that the combination of industrial style farming, genetic engineering of plants for industrial farming, the loss of smaller family farms, and the way in which we city dwellers have lost touch with the source of our food and any knowledge about it threaten our food security. She's trying to argue that the situation is serious and the need to act is immediate, and that there are things that ordinary people can do, in feeding themselves, to improve the situation.
Her husband, a professor of environmental science at a Virginia college, argues that the amount of petroleum consumed to transport out of season produce dramatically raises it cost - a cost that is invisible to us and subsidized by our government.
Her family's experiment is presented as proof that folks can take matters into their own hands, and her account is meant to show, in part, how it can be done. After living in Tucson, Arizona, for many years, she and her husband move their family to his farm in Virginia. They spend a year eating only those things that they can grow themselves or purchase from folks living nearby, and this book is Kingsolver's account of that year.
In short, they eat in season, something many of us, with our hothouse tomatoes and raspberries in winter, do not do.
The story of the year that her family spent trying to eat food that they'd either grown themselves or purchased from nearby neighbors is a little short on drama. Plenty of passion when she talks about how the use of corn syrup in many of our foods has helped to fatten us as a nation at the same time that the year-round availability of most fruits and vegetables requires shipping long distances, and that the logistics of their shipping means they arrive at our table shorn of any flavor. This, at the same time that the profit-maximizing policies of seed companies like Monsanto have led to a greatly reduced biodiversity that, if allowed to continue, will likely lead to catastrophic crop failures and widespread famine in the developed world. (I don't think Kingsolver explicitly states that famine will definitely happen, but if you're Irish you know how the story ends.)
This is important stuff, and Kingsolver is committed and passionate, and I admire her, and I find that I need toothpicks to keep my eyelids open.
The chapters on "Molly Mooching" (a local name for morels, with recipes) and "Gratitude," are delightfully engaging, full of rich, descriptive writing and probably catnip for a foodie.
"Gratitude" opens with a Mother's Day gift to a neighbor, a tomato plant. Kingsolver reports that the recipient did not say thank you, and her family refrained from saying "You're welcome." This is because of a local belief that if you say "thank you," for a plant, the plant will die.
The type of tomato this was a variety called "Silver Fig" from the former Soviet Union.
The chapter continues with a section on the May planting, an arduous task begun before school starts in the morning and continued after school lets out until well after dark. More tomato varieties are described in loving detail. Kingsolver plants a Siberian variety, bred for its ability to ripen in a short summer, helping to ensure some early tomatoes.
In June, she's embarrassed when she plans to offer some of those Siberian tomatoes to a friend only to discover that her friend, living in western Massachusetts, already has some gargantuan tomatoes.
In this chapter, Kingsolver starts to talk about a practical problem: Americans have grown accustomed not just to eating out of season but to paying lower prices for factory-farm produced food that food produced by hand on smaller farms and sold at farmers' markets can be sold for.
But Kingsolver argues that the price differential is not enough to discourage low-income food consumers and that in fact, holders of food subsidy vouchers can use them at farmers' markets. I didn't know this, and it's a big revelation to me. In fact, there are foodmobile buses - Kingsolver mentions one in Tennessee and I know of one in Austin - that take fresh produce to urban neighborhoods. I am intrigued and wonder if it is really possible for there to be a successful farmers' market in an area that's not very affluent.
The book ends on the happiest of notes, as the author and her youngest daughter celebrate the birth of their first turkey chicks on the farm, a joyous event and the realization of the author's dream to help preserve vintage varieties of turkey.
If you'd like to know more about Barbara Kingsolver's experiment, her family, or resources for learning more about Slow Food International or Slow Food USA, there's a special website (with recipes!) at http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/
You can find out about Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste here: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/details/ark_of_taste/
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