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This is the latest post in a series about recommended reading, for building a green library in your home.
Anyone who wants to see what it's like to eat local-really local, as in grown yourself or by someone you know-need look no further than Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007, HarperCollins Publishers) by Barbara Kingsolver. Joined by daughter Camille Kingsolver and husband Steven L. Hopp, the book is both a literal and figurative journey through seasonal eating, re-thinking America's food production methods and celebrating a year of truly sustainable food.
This is accomplished largely by the family themselves, who move from Arizona to the old family farm in Virgina for the expressed purpose of getting back to their roots (and we're not just talking family tree here). Kingsolver is an experienced gardener, and her hope is that with a bunch of seeds and some planning, she can feed her family for an entire year without resorting to putting processed junk food or produce shipped in from across the country (or another continent altogether) on her table. The result: a passionate, knowledgeable account that turns out to be much more than a journal of gardening.The experiment involves tomatoes piled up on every flat surface in her kitchen and more squash than the family knows what to do with and giving food away to neighbors and friends; on the opposite side of the bountiful harvest, there's lots of careful planning, long hours spent preserving, canning and freezing, and a few lean times. Still, the family makes it through with good spirits and more knowledge about turkey sex than anyone will ever get shopping at any grocery store.
Though the book proves that it is possible to grow almost all of your own food, that's not entirely the point; certainly, Kingsolver doesn't expect (and rightfully so) everyone who reads the book to go buy a farm and give it a shot. So, it's less about being a practical guide-though it would probably work very well as such-and more about establishing a different kind of relationship with the food you eat. More than that, it's about not just recognizing where your food comes from, but celebrating it, reveling in harvest's bounty, and enjoying the fact that it never tastes better than when you know who planted, raised, tended to, and harvested your food.
Ultimately, the book's most sentient takeaway is this: eating local (or any particular way of eating, for that matter) is not about self-denial while marking the days on a calendar until you can have a Big Mac; it's about adopting a lifestyle that allows you to change your eating patterns with the seasons, embracing the best of what your regional cuisine has to offer and celebrating the role of food in your life. That it's cheaper, better for the planet, and better for you are all just nice side benefits of this new lifestyle.
Difficulty level: Moderate
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