Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (Paperback) by Barbara Kingsolver

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05/13/08

Kate Gaidos rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: author-get-over-thyself, foodwriting

I do not want to have lunch with Barbara Kingsolver. I do not want to sit across the table from this self-satisfied woman and have her gently scold me for eating imported "world traveler" foods, like bananas. I also do not want to hear any more of her stories about how awesome she and her family are, and how they were able to eat primarily off what they could grow in their backyard, (plenty of fresh vegetables!) or buy from local farmers (who are all personal friends, anyway! Aren't we...more I do not want to have lunch with Barbara Kingsolver. I do not want to sit across the table from this self-satisfied woman and have her gently scold me for eating imported "world traveler" foods, like bananas. I also do not want to hear any more of her stories about how awesome she and her family are, and how they were able to eat primarily off what they could grow in their backyard, (plenty of fresh vegetables!) or buy from local farmers (who are all personal friends, anyway! Aren't we cool?). I don't want to hear anymore about how her family is doing their part to stop global warming by reducing food processing and transportation costs, and now they all managed to do it WITHOUT FIGHTING. Who are these people? Everybody gets home from work or school and has to go garden til dark every freaking day, and there's no fighting? There's no salmon, or packaged cookies, or Cheetos, and there's STILL no fighting? Even though some members of the family are 17 and, like, 10?

What I wanted most of all was to hear the stories about how she caught her daughter hiding Little Debbie under the bed, or how her teenager was to embarassed to bring her friends over without soda to offer them. But nooooo. No such humanizing details. Some small bumps in the road, such as when the teenager craves fresh fruit in early spring, but none is in season. But -- a ha! -- easily solved, with RHURBARB from the farmer's market. Give me a break. This is cheating the readers. It HAD to have been more interesting than this.

But, that aside, it actually was pretty interesting. She's a wonderful writer, and much of the information and storytelling was totally fascinating. I will be thinking about this book for a long time, and it really has inspired me to pay more attention to local growing seasons, (although in California I guess we're a little spoiled,) and do more shopping at farmer's markets, and cook more, and perhaps even grow my own tomatoes...heirloom, of course. I just don't want to hang out with Barbara Kingsolver. EVER. Unless she's prepared to talk about what really went down. (less)

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10/10/07

Lena rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: memoir

Barbara Kingsolver has long been one of my favorite writers, but this most recent book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The book covers the year she and her family spent eating only food they had either grown themselves or purchased from local farmers personally known to them. Kingsolver’s skill as a storyteller is undiminished, and there are some wonderful sections as she relates their adventures plotting how to foist some of their bumper zucchini harvest off on unsuspecting neighbors and h...more Barbara Kingsolver has long been one of my favorite writers, but this most recent book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The book covers the year she and her family spent eating only food they had either grown themselves or purchased from local farmers personally known to them. Kingsolver’s skill as a storyteller is undiminished, and there are some wonderful sections as she relates their adventures plotting how to foist some of their bumper zucchini harvest off on unsuspecting neighbors and how they helped their new turkey crop re-learn the lost art of natural copulation.

The book also succeeded in teaching me quite a bit I didn’t know about food and gardening. As someone who was raised on heavily processed foods, I was fascinated to learn the biological secrets of root vegetables, how a mild-mannered novelist “harvests” chickens at home, and how much better food can taste when it hasn’t been subject to the rigors of corporate food production. Her chapter on asparagus helped me understand why the tough, road-hardened variety found in most conventional stores is only a pale shadow of an organically grown stalk picked just hours earlier; her description of the succulent magic of morels made me want to take up mushroom hunting.

In these celebrations of the pleasures of fresh, locally grown, in-season produce, Kingsolver was very effective in inspiring me to think more about how to plan my menus around what is seasonally available. I’ll be adding her sweet-potato quesadilla recipe to my menu this week, and I’m looking forward to trying out her dried-tomato pesto.

On the down side, Ms. Kingsolver’s charming storytelling is laced with a rather heavy dose of preaching. I have no doubt that the food monoculture promoted by corporate America has had devastating effects on our health, taste buds, and environment, and the loss of crop diversity these practices have created has made us very vulnerable as a population. These are important issues that need to be talked about. But part of the reason I’ve admired Ms. Kingsolver’s past writing is because she has always woven her political views so seamlessly into her stories that, in reading her books, I always learned new things without feeling like I had been force-fed someone else’s opinions.

That was not the case with this book. The first quarter is particularly thick with commentary on the evils of our current food system. More than once, I found myself slogging through sections that left me feeling more guilty about the food currently in my kitchen than inspired to adopt her suggestions. This tone made the read much less effective for me than it would have been had she focused primarily on the very real value her family gained from choosing to forgo convenience in favor of such fantastically delicious food.
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03/03/08

Mary Louise rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: food, grassroots-poliltical-action

I can forgive the obvious shortcommings of this book for three significant reasons: First, I believe wholeheartedly that by purchasing as much locally grown/made food as possible we can solve our fossil fuel dependency. Secondly, by the luck of the draw I can afford to purchase food from the weekly farmer’s market. And finally, our household is committed to making around 95% of our meals from scratch, which started as a response to our collective allergies (nondairy, meat-eaters) but like the ...more I can forgive the obvious shortcommings of this book for three significant reasons: First, I believe wholeheartedly that by purchasing as much locally grown/made food as possible we can solve our fossil fuel dependency. Secondly, by the luck of the draw I can afford to purchase food from the weekly farmer’s market. And finally, our household is committed to making around 95% of our meals from scratch, which started as a response to our collective allergies (nondairy, meat-eaters) but like the Kingsolver tribe, once our taste buds were reawakened by the flavor of our delicious made-by-scratch food, there was no turning back. I agree with most of what she says and respect her reminder that I need to buy as much food as possible from local farmers, and I am going to try a few of her recipes. I do, on occasion, enjoy a frozen Snickers bar.

In general I endured this book and it certainly motivated me. But the book has many problems.

Several critics have said it was not her intention to convince “everyone” but I don’t buy that. When a well-known author writes a book like this it becomes persuasive argument. (Hey, every book you write is an argument!) Besides, The Farmer’s Market Choir is already convinced. Rather quickly Kingsolver's tone is preachy, and well, whom is she yelling at but the uninitiated? It reminds me of the old saying, there is nothing worse than listening to the recently reformed. After all, she did spend a huge amount of time in Arizona and that other life eating and drinking. (Poor Arizona! The only answer this evolved American author can come up with is to abandon you.)

I was both an inspired and a reluctant reader; I wish I had edited this book to help cut out some of the unnecessary fat. One moment she has me right in the palm of her hand, the next she veers off, shoe-horning that well-warn and skewed stereotype about how the French, given their high calorie intake manage to stay thin, and how Europe has nude beaches where Americans could never show-up with rolls of fat hanging out, and suddenly I feel cornered by the marginalized relative at my family reunion. At first I am nodding with agreement when she argues that eating freshly prepared food is a matter of attitude, but then she says “take a look at Mexico,” and I stop nodding. Having stayed on many a ranch in Mexico, I wonder why she fails to recognize the rigid gender roles? The economic problems? Then much later, on page 127, she admits that “Full-time homemaking may not be an option for those of us delivered without trust funds…Required participation from a spouse and kids an element of the equation…” and well, it all comes much too late.

This book had the potential but missed the chance to change the minds of the other people--the unconvinced--the people she most needs!

I wanted her to stop meandering, stop arguing every counter-argument and stick to her narrative nonfiction story and its strongest argument: how a renewed connection to food transformed her family and their relationship with the community. By purchasing your neighbors food, you can help with the fossil fuel problem AND keep their farm in business. Small yet significant gestures such as buying butter from the same family in your area keeps them in business and it is a huge step in the right direction.

And since many Americans feel helpless, this book could show them how to help, and that's a big, wondeful adjustment in a culture where more and more people feel left out and powerless. This plan will only work if more people get on board, (and if we find a way to help Arizona!) And YES, by eating this kind of food, many have lost weight and become heart-healthy and all of that is good. But instead of shrilling, "tell" by "showing", girlfriend.

Like many narrative nonfiction books on the market today, the ones people in the publishing business call “idea books”--Kingsolver's narrator tries too hard, steps into her self-made traps. There’s so much I should love about this book, and I hope some other author takes up this subject again, and gives it a good try. I'd certainly buy it!

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09/09/07

Shaina rated it:

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bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in August, 2007

This book was one of my big disappointments so far this year, because I went in thinking I'd really like it and wound up so unimpressed that I think I actually hated it. The premise of the book is an interesting one, so interesting that I called my mother on the way back from the bookstore to tell her all about this new book I just picked up that I thought she'd really like! Barbara Kingsolver and her family have decided, for various environmental, political, and health reasons, to eat locally...more This book was one of my big disappointments so far this year, because I went in thinking I'd really like it and wound up so unimpressed that I think I actually hated it. The premise of the book is an interesting one, so interesting that I called my mother on the way back from the bookstore to tell her all about this new book I just picked up that I thought she'd really like! Barbara Kingsolver and her family have decided, for various environmental, political, and health reasons, to eat locally for a year and try and raise as much of their own produce and meat as they deemed feasible.

Kingsolver is a good writer and I've enjoyed Animal Dreams and The Bean Trees, so I assumed I would enjoy her adecdotes about her family's efforts to grow their own food supply. What I ended up with was an essayist trying relentlessly to convert me over to her point of view. America is bad, cooking your own food is good, be ashamed of your horrible non-food-cooking empty life. I'm exaggerating a little bit but not much. Over and over again Kingsolver relates large-scale problems in America (crime! addiction!) today to the fact that we no longer live close to our own food supplies. She has some valid points, but the holier-than-thou attitude ended up annoying me so much I couldn't make myself receptive to her message, and instead devoted myself to picking apart her examples. Also, it felt like there was a subtle sexism going on with regard to a woman's place in the home. Her husband may have made all the bread in their household but Kingsolver and her daughters were portrayed as doing most of the labor and cooking, and as one point she talks about the deep contentment she gets out of Thanksgiving, all the women in the kitchen working and gossiping together as they cook, all the men outside pretending they can throw around a pigskin. I think my favorite one, though, was when she said that women going into the workplace in the mid-20th Century was the reason why America's food culture devolved. There was this sense that, wow, America had just been so much better a hundred years ago, gosh, why can't we all just get back to that.

My new goal is go get everyone to read this book and find out if they hate it as much as I did.(less)

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01/06/08

Joanna rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: nature

Read in December, 2007

Well...normally I am a Kingsolver fan. I just like the way she writes--simple and straight forward. Her stories, both long an short are well done. But this book just really pissed me off. It's a non-fiction account of her back to the land movement with her family. The book starts off well and good. She describes their reasoning for leaving Tuscon and moving to a farm they inherited. She talks about the trials and tribulations of trying to live off of what they can either produce themselves throu...more Well...normally I am a Kingsolver fan. I just like the way she writes--simple and straight forward. Her stories, both long an short are well done. But this book just really pissed me off. It's a non-fiction account of her back to the land movement with her family. The book starts off well and good. She describes their reasoning for leaving Tuscon and moving to a farm they inherited. She talks about the trials and tribulations of trying to live off of what they can either produce themselves through farming or buy locally. (Each family member is only allowed one "luxury" item This consists of foodstuffs that can't be produced at home or bought locally-- a bit over the top if you ask me but I suppose an interesting addition to their overall movement.) Kingsolver makes a lot of good points about eating what's in season and offers some handy recipes.

However, about mid-way through the book, her passion and reflections take an unfortunate turn to absolute preachiness. She writes as if our understanding of the food chain stops at our understanding of how to open a bag of Doritos. She proceeds to slam vegetarians--apparently we do not get the concept of family farming because if we did we would eat locally raised animals. She also looks done her nose at those who shop at supermarkets for food--apparently people who think we are doing good by purchasing organic items are really not. Ditto for those who use recycled paper towels. I guess her family makes their own. She gets on a high horse about, of all things, canning. She maintains that us city folk could feed ourselves off the land year round if we would only can the fruits and vegetables we buy at the farmer's market in the summer and store them in our pantry. Perhaps if Barbara went to a real NYC apartment, and not just those of her publisher and editor, she would realize that most of us, if we are lucky, have a broom closet. If only I would be selfless enough to keep my clothes on my fire escape.

I guess what made me the maddest about this book is that I like her as an author and I liked the premise of this book. It reminded me of a book my father-in-law wrote years and years ago, only this one is a hell of a lot less funny. We all have a responsibility to conserve and be aware of our impact. But her assumption that we're all bumbling idiots just threw me over the edge. Too bad. I hope her next book is fiction.(less)

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08/16/07

Elizabeth rated it:

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Read in January, 2008

recommended to Elizabeth by: Anna, Sarah
recommends it for: humans

You have to read this book. Not just because it conveys an important message about the sustainability and environmental impact of our foodways. Not just because its "Year in Provence"-style charm makes Appalachia sound as alluring as the French or Italian countryside (no euros required). But mostly because this is beautiful, tightly-strung writing about food and what it means to nourish ourselves. If you've read a certain amount of writing on food you know, sweet and delicious thoug...more You have to read this book. Not just because it conveys an important message about the sustainability and environmental impact of our foodways. Not just because its "Year in Provence"-style charm makes Appalachia sound as alluring as the French or Italian countryside (no euros required). But mostly because this is beautiful, tightly-strung writing about food and what it means to nourish ourselves. If you've read a certain amount of writing on food you know, sweet and delicious though it may be, that it can get cloying. A quick flip through Barbara's chapter on turkey butchering will cure you.

In case you've had your head in the sand or don't live in the Bay Area or somewhere like it, here's the book's basic premise: Novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her professor husband pack up their two daughters and move from the New Mexican desert to a small farm in Virginia, where it rains and things grow, and after a bit of a weaning process that involves hard decisions about bananas, undertake a year of eating nothing but locally produced food. It's a lot of hard work, since they're doing most of the local production themselves. They make cheese and cook pumpkins and OD on asparagus. They have slaughtering parties. They come up with seasonal menus and recipes and share them with you.

There's some sound political analysis of why and how our food chain has become a fossil-fuel eating monster that disserves developing economies around the world while eroding our health here at home. There's some preaching (oh well). There's a careful explanation of why and under what circumstances raising animals to eat them can be the best use of the planet's resources. There's a chick-hatching scene that will make you weep.

I still can't keep my beloved husband from buying huge flats of Costco fruit grown halfway around the world, and I'm not giving up Italian truffles or French cheese or wine any time soon. So I can't be smug. But right now I have a big pot of soup simmering on the stove full of veggies from our local community-supported agriculture box, and I feel like we're living just a little bit more.(less)

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06/22/08

Nicole rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in June, 2008

I have to admit that I have a real love/hate relationship with this book.

On one hand, when the author sticks to the actual practicalities and stories of what it took to live on local food only for a year such as the hilarity of turkey sex, the pets vs food dilemma or the aggravation that a zucchini crop can cause, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. On the other hand, when she goes the route of moralizing and fear mongering about the environment and public health, and stoops to the t...more I have to admit that I have a real love/hate relationship with this book.

On one hand, when the author sticks to the actual practicalities and stories of what it took to live on local food only for a year such as the hilarity of turkey sex, the pets vs food dilemma or the aggravation that a zucchini crop can cause, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. On the other hand, when she goes the route of moralizing and fear mongering about the environment and public health, and stoops to the typical "America sucks compared to the rest of the world" it gets maddeningly obnoxious (especially the part about the evils of Halloween and Fourth of July - come on lady, lighten the hell up!). I kept alternating between being riveted and wanting to toss the book against the wall.

I can't help but think that Kingsolver, her husband and daughter present a very incomplete and one sided picture of American farming. I suspect that the truth is somewhat more complicated than Evil Capitalist Overlord Farm Corporations vs. Saintly Environmentalist Local Organic Farmers. It becomes very obvious right from the beginning that she's got an extremely narrow focus for her arguments and doesn't quite understand how economies work and how and politics and public policy have shaped where people live and what foods are accessible to them beyond the typical liberal "you're being hoodwinked by those nasty CFOs."

It doesn't seem to occur to her that not everyone wants to be a farmer, grow their own food or make meals from scratch. Both of my grandmothers grew up on farms and could tell you at length about how much being a farmer, baking your own bread and living on only "local food" can completely suck. And while claims that she's not an elitist, smug self-satisfaction creeps into passages all over the book.

Her assertion that low income families can afford to shop at farmer's markets is equally boggling. I went to my local farmer's market last weekend and discovered that local organic ground beef costs about seven bucks a pound and that the organic, free range, local chicken runs between twice and four times as expensive as it does in the local supermarket.

Finally, her argument that America doesn't have any real food culture of it's own made me almost sprain my eyeballs from rolling them so much. It apparently escapes her that 1) America as a country is extremely young in comparison to most European, Asian and South American countries and therefore wouldn't have as ingrained of a tradition and 2) the reason that most of the traditions we have are imported from other countries because, hello, we're mostly a nation of immigrants and their descendants. She takes a trip to Canada and gushes about the local French food culture - as though she couldn't find the similar of thing in any major city in the States and as though French cuisine isn't imported to Canada too.

Not that she doesn't make interesting and legitimate points; the part about biodiversity among crops and livestock as well as the the havoc farm subsidies have caused are two of the best points that she makes. And I will give her this - although I don't agree with a lot of what she argues, she has given me a lot of things to think about and I will probably put a lot more thought into what I buy to feed myself and my family. But she seriously needs to dial back on the smugness, guilt and fear mongering, and focus more on the fascinating daily life of what it means to grow and eat locally because she'd win more converts that way.(less)

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05/12/08

Miriam rated it:

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bookshelves: food-related-books

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Miriam by: library display
recommends it for: organic farmers, environmentalists, people who enjoy feeling guilty

My favorite cameo of all times from The Simpsons features Ed Begley Jr with a non-polluting car that runs on "[his] own sense of self-satisfaction." As I read this book, I couldn't help remembering that scene. Is Barbara Kingsolver a talented writer? Undoubtedly. Her descriptions of food are wonderful, and she makes her life on the farm sound idyllic, although she is realistic about the work involved. However, throughout it all,the undercurrent of self-satisfaction makes it hard to tak...more My favorite cameo of all times from The Simpsons features Ed Begley Jr with a non-polluting car that runs on "[his] own sense of self-satisfaction." As I read this book, I couldn't help remembering that scene. Is Barbara Kingsolver a talented writer? Undoubtedly. Her descriptions of food are wonderful, and she makes her life on the farm sound idyllic, although she is realistic about the work involved. However, throughout it all,the undercurrent of self-satisfaction makes it hard to take. It's a pity, too, because I think her message is important.

Have a lot of Americans lost a connection with the land? Yes. Do many of us eat far too much processed food? Yes. However, Kingsolver can't seem to find one redeeming virtue in the life that so many millions of Americans live. At one point she mentions throwing the baby out with the bathwater in terms of the poor food choices Americans make, but with her all-or-nothing perspective, she is doing a little baby-tossing of her own. She sings the praises of Europe while stating that the US has no food culture. I've lived in every time zone in the continental US, and in every place I've found a different food culture. The US is a nation of immigrants, and despite McDonalds and Taco Bell, many features of this cultural blending are still alive and well.

The essays and sidebar articles by her husband and daughter are really what caused me to give the book two stars. The recipes her daughter writes about sound delicious, but the overly earnest prose is obviously written by a teenager, albeit a very intelligent one. The sidebars, like most sidebar articles, are too brief to really tell the full story. For example, in one article, Kingsolver's husband mentions that over 2/3rds of the families in Moscow grow their own food. This was true at one point, although anecdotal evidence leads me to believe that this is no longer the case, but he doesn't mention that in Western Siberia, a lot of people can no longer garden because encephalitis-bearing ticks have taken over their land, and they get closer and closer to the cities every year. The government used to spray for these ticks once a year, but they stopped spraying during the lean 1990s, and the ticks have taken over. A lot of families can no longer grow vegetables to supplement their diets, and the percentage of encephalitis-infected ticks grows every year. This is one example where the benefits of pesticides might outweigh the risks.

Long story short (too late, I know), this was in many respects a good book, and I enjoyed parts of it a lot. It was the feeling of Kingsolver's contempt for the majority of Americans that made it so hard to take.
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03/17/08

Renee rated it:

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bookshelves: community, non-fiction

Read in March, 2008

I was so excited to finally get my hands on this fantastic story about one family's year long experiment in growing & raising most of their own food. I love reading about people who think differently, act differently and live differently than the norm.

I think the grow your own philosophy of this family is extreme for our culture but I am so attracted to it because it's a life lived with intention and deep conviction. In comparison I found our own family's efforts in supporting ou...more I was so excited to finally get my hands on this fantastic story about one family's year long experiment in growing & raising most of their own food. I love reading about people who think differently, act differently and live differently than the norm.

I think the grow your own philosophy of this family is extreme for our culture but I am so attracted to it because it's a life lived with intention and deep conviction. In comparison I found our own family's efforts in supporting our local agriculture fairly piddly. This was a reality check since I can sometimes get on my high horse because I belong to a CSA and visit the weekly summer farmer's market.

My basic criticisms of the book are two. Firstly, Kingsolver spends a fair amount of time writing about being a working mother. How she's managed to have a career and still can tomatoes. But from my farm & gardening experience I have a hard time believing that during the course of their grow-your-own year both she and her husband worked full time, yet she leaves readers with that impression. Or at the very least she doesn't exactly expound on her daily goings on except for what she's picking from the garden and special events celebrated with family and friends. What I want to know is how do you raise animals, plant, weed, pick, can and preserve the garden, butcher the animals and cook a home cooked meal every night? All while parenting, cleaning house, doing laundry, running errands, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da AND working full time?? These questions are never answered. And yet growing at least some of your own food is presented as achievable for the American family. I believe that unless the average American family undergoes a shift in priorities to spend less, drive less and work less the grow your own mentality is largely unrealistic. But hopefully books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle will be a part of the movement that changes our popular fast food, fast life culture. So that realistically more families will choose to grow more gardens and shop for local, in season food.

That brings me to the second criticism or perhaps observation. As a plant based eater living in Northern New England if I chose to eat only locally grown foods I'd eat a lot of potatotes and go crazy with summer blueberries (not a bad thing). Our family has chosen to base our diet on plants for improved immediate health and longevity, we want to be hiking with our grandkids. Eating a variety of foods from around the globe (at times) makes this possible. And for many, many people the only way to achieve the health they want in northern latitudes is to eat fruits and vegetables grown elsewhere. A bit of a conundrum if you believe in local sustainable agriculture - which I do. So, I'm thinking this one through. Trying to think of all the healthy foods which are grown here, how we can maximize our consumption of those and perhaps decrease the food we eat that is shipped from long distances.

Overall, the book was a fantastic read . Kingsolver is engaging, funny, convincing and just an all round excellent writer. The book is an eat your local veggies & meat mantra but the narrative of her family keeps it personal and interesting. (less)

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08/28/07

Jo rated it:

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Read in August, 2007

I had a hard time putting this down once I'd started and once I'd finished I wanted to give up NYC life and move to the country to be an organic farmer. I'm hardly joking.

Anyone who eats -- and especially those who eat without thinking about where their food comes from -- should read this book. Not only is it informative and a bit scary (though she doesn't present anything terribly new or earth-shattering to those of us who have read things like Fast Food Nation or Portrait of a Burg...more

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03/01/08

Alison rated it:

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Read in March, 2008

recommended to Alison by: I was planning to read it, but Sara read it first!

By the way, I accidentally clicked that I "liked" this other person Camille's review. I didn't.

I give this book 5 stars because its cause is very close to my heart. It is an excellent primer for sustainable, local food sourcing: it provides a good overview of the issues (including problems faced by small farms and the many dangers to global food supply and health posed by the industrial food complex) and a plan for gradually incorporating local and sustainable foods in...more By the way, I accidentally clicked that I "liked" this other person Camille's review. I didn't.

I give this book 5 stars because its cause is very close to my heart. It is an excellent primer for sustainable, local food sourcing: it provides a good overview of the issues (including problems faced by small farms and the many dangers to global food supply and health posed by the industrial food complex) and a plan for gradually incorporating local and sustainable foods into your life (small steps, recipes, food plans, resources for learning more, and advice for approaching farmer's markets, CSAs, and even your supermarket). It covers the reasons why the country's foodways face imminent disaster, how you can help, and, most importantly for newbies, the many, many pleasures that can be had from responsible eating.

Barbara Kingsolver chooses to take as pleasant, nonjudgmental and nondidactic approach as one can take to such important topics, because she is hoping to persuade people who are ignorant of or hostile to the issues. That's a pretty good approach for the book, though you can see from some of the reviews on this site that it wasn't even tolerant enough for people who don't want to take the trouble to learn or to change. (E.g., the person who thought she was scoring against BK by claiming that the gas she'd use driving to the farmer's market justified her buying industrial food instead. Clearly, someone wasn't able to tot up the gas miles involved in industrial food--or, for that matter, to read the sidebars that totted it up for her. I'd LIKE to think she was ignorant, and not just a defensive jerk.)

But I really do not have time for people who have the power, education, and means to do and know better, but can't take the trouble to do it. I include myself in that judgment: there are plenty of times I choose industrial food over sustainable--because I'm working too hard, broke, tired, craving Lays potato chips--but these are feeble excuses--and they are *immoral*. If you consider yourself a Democrat, liberal, environmentalist, humanist--or for that matter, a conservative who cares about the future of his or her children--you simply cannot rely on industrial food--including organic industrial food--for the majority of your diet. It is wrong, and there's no way to get around it. It was wrong to support the Iraq war (did anybody follow the news a few years ago that it has been made illegal in Iraq to save seeds? Iraqi farmers have been doing it for like thousands of years, growing crops from seed saved from previous harvests. But the U.S. has introduced a number of patented GM seeds, making U.S. farmer's aid dependent on use of the patented seeds, and made it illegal to save them. This creates a dependency on further purchases of seeds, as well as the chemicals needed to sustain them, and endangers nearby farmland that *hasn't* bought seed but gets contaminated by cross-pollination. We know that this has already happened on a huge scale in the U.S.), it was wrong to vote for Bush, and it is just as wrong to do most of your shopping at the supermarket--including Whole Foods--when you have alternatives--and in New York, at least, we DO have alternatives. It makes me furious to see this happening, and to do it myself when I lapse, in a way that should be more common--we should be angry, and we should talk about it, and we should not let ourselves off the hook. So obviously I'm passionate about this.

Oh, back to the book. So, I think it's an important book, and I have Kingsolver's essay "Lily's Chickens" to thank for introducing me to these issues a few years ago. I learned some useful things abut aspects of food policy with which I was unfamiliar, and a lot of gardening tips. And I found it inspiring, and guilt-inspiring in a GOOD way, that is, the way that makes you change for the better, and not the way that makes you whine about how you have good reasons for being the way you are and that it's unfair of other people to expect you to change....anyway, I've already improved my buying habits since starting the book. But because I'm familiar with some of the material already, some things did stand out to me as mistakes. Her arguments about the bias against rural people, and her explanation of rural hostility to newcomers and difference as a protection against exploitation, were interesting and compelling, but her failure to acknowledge that we are not all white middle-clsas families, and that our "difference" can be construed in entirely different ways, as indeed a failure. (I'm not saying that only country people are racist or homophobic. But you can't defend the hinterlands as protective of some kind of essential American identity and not mention stuff like, oh, Matthew Shepard.) Her arguments in favor of meat eating, when she concentrated on the environmental benefits of sustainable grazing in nonarable land, were very good; they were NOT good when she defended meat eating as part of "civilization," and therefore okay. I mean, really. And finally, Kingsolver's prose style is very nearly unbearable: florid, inapt, laden with some of the most tortured similes you will ever read. It's a good idea never to read the first two paragraphs of any of her books, because her openings are always the worst things she writes. She needs to find a better editor, someone who has a red pen. (Her husband, Steven Hopp, writes the side essays with the numbers and the policy; they're very good. Camille, her daughter, writes the recipes and food plans; her writing can be a little florid too, but she had the excuse of being nineteen.) And that's too bad, because it does a disservice to the issues.(less)

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07/07/07

Sharon rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

Read in September, 2007

Here’s a double-post from our Costa Rica blog (www.maxandsharon.blogspot.com) for my pals on Goodreads. There’s no better place to be readin this book than in a rural part of a developing country. If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s about a year that her family lived off of only local food (they had to know the person who grew or raised it). So far it seems to be about half about their reasons for doing it (the politics, economics, science of it), and half about the methods (ho...more Here’s a double-post from our Costa Rica blog (www.maxandsharon.blogspot.com) for my pals on Goodreads. There’s no better place to be readin this book than in a rural part of a developing country. If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s about a year that her family lived off of only local food (they had to know the person who grew or raised it). So far it seems to be about half about their reasons for doing it (the politics, economics, science of it), and half about the methods (how asparagus grows, how they set up their lot). For food fanatics like me, it’s awesome.

It takes on a new significance here. The town and its economies have changed a lot since I first came here, and there are lots of imported items available. But still, people are much more connected to the land and what it offers us. Asan (and now Khalida) are a wealth of information about the plants around us. We take walks down the driveway and scavenge nibbles from the side of the road. There’s a tree (pochote) with large, shiny, dark-green leaves you can eat. It’s got a nice tang to it, and eating it makes me feel better for the complete absence of anything else green in my diet here. Jules loves it. There are a handful of trees on the driveway with berries and seeds we can eat: nances, lenguas de vaca (you should see the leaves), and others. Asan came in yesterday with a fresh coconut, two spoons, and two straws for my kids to drink the milk and scrape out the yummy insides.

I LOVE that the kids are really learning where food comes from. Our eggs come from Asan’s mother’s house, and the kids search the garage where the chickens have taken up nesting for the loot. Starting today, we’re going to get our milk fresh from Asan’s grandmother’s cows. The honey came from a hive on the property.

On the other hand, I’m learning things that make me see how easy it is for us to lose our food culture, for it to be perverted into the kind of food-comes-from-the-supermarket mentality that we have in the States. Khal’s house is about 1 km, as the crow flies, from the ocean, in Montezuma. The center of Montezuma is at the beach. Cobano is the nearest town with facilities other than tourist facilities (bank, schools, clinic, etc.) and is about 7 km inland. Never, in the entire time I lived in Cobano, did I see someone eating fish. I talked to Asan about this yesterday, and he told me that the fish he used to serve in his Cobano restaurant came from Puntarenas, about 4 hours—including a ferry ride!—away! He also bets that it was caught down the road from Montezuma, and shipped to Puntarenas for distribution. There is no fish market in this entire region, despite the fact that we live less than 1 km from the ocean. If we want to eat fish, we have to ask Ana, Khal’s housekeeper who lives among fishermen down the road from Montezuma, to bring us the catch of the day. The other day she brought us a whole red snapper, which Max gallantly descaled, by the way. It easily fed five adults the most delicious fish I have ever tasted, and cost us about $4.50.
I also learned that the avocados, which are a staple of the diet here, now come from Mexico. Fifteen years ago, Marcos and Emilia used to keep a potato sack full of avocados in the kitchen. They collected them from the tree in Marcos’s mother’s yard. But apparently in the intervening years, an invading, non-local termite snuck in—the local theory is that they road in on the bales of imported telephone wire, but it’s easy to see why locals would blame technology—and ate all of the avocado trees. In fifteen years, they went from having an avocado per person per day for free, to having to import them and pay American prices for them. Such an awesome source of good fats and nutrients…and now the non-wealthy can’t afford them. So sad.
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06/28/07

Lucinda rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: food

Read in July, 2007

Good Reads is becoming the place I write what I thought what a book was going to be about and then either come back disappointed or pleasantly surprised.

In this case, it's mild disappointment. When I heard about this book and read the review, I thought it would be more like a diary. A multi-person diary about difficulties, triumphs, and oddities of a family living as "locavores" for a year.

Kingsolver and family move to their Virginia farm with the intention of ...more

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01/30/08

Kate rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: creative-nonfiction, sustainability

Read in June, 2007

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I have always been a fan of Barbara Kingsolver's work; her novels have a comfortable quality to them that makes me return a few times (except for Prodigal Summer, which I really didn't care much for). But once I discovered her nonfiction, my world changed. She was the first creative nonfiction writer who caught my eye and made me laugh, cry, and feel enraged. Had I not read her work, I doubt I ever would have been interested in writing creative nonfiction to begin with. I tell you all of this so...more I have always been a fan of Barbara Kingsolver's work; her novels have a comfortable quality to them that makes me return a few times (except for Prodigal Summer, which I really didn't care much for). But once I discovered her nonfiction, my world changed. She was the first creative nonfiction writer who caught my eye and made me laugh, cry, and feel enraged. Had I not read her work, I doubt I ever would have been interested in writing creative nonfiction to begin with. I tell you all of this so that you can recognize any possible bias in the following statement: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a splendid book.

The basic premise of the book is as follows: after much consideration of fossil fuel dilemmas, the struggling plight of local farmers, global warming, and an intense dedication to organic food processes, Kingsolver's family of four decided to go one year eating only things that came from within their county. They allotted each person one specialty item (her husband's was coffee; hers were spices like cinnamon, etc.) and bought bulk flour, but otherwise stuck more or less to the plan. They began in April and finished in April, and grew a massive amount of their own food (including poultry/eggs), supplementing it with farmers' market runs.

AVM is strong for a number of reasons. Like her previous nonfiction works (High Tide in Tucson and Small Wonder), she strikes a solid balance between personal exploration and education. So in places she reflects on the entire experience--perhaps a couple pages on the appearance of asparagus and her personal and familial relationship with it, as well as a description of the patch they currently have--and then a few pages later, we learn about a particular facet of, say, the development of GM (genetically modified) seeds and the power they gave to agribusiness through copyright and patent laws. This fluidity is paced fairly well--there are only occasional places where she feels too preachy or gets too personally tangential, and they're tucked in with enough interesting details to make them almost unnoticeable.

Be clear: this is not a how-to book (as she notes in the first couple chapters) and it is not necessarily designed to convince you that you need to do the same (she's not the local food police). Instead, she honestly highlights their struggles and joys, illuminates their reasoning for the whole project, throws in some fun anecdotes, and just generally expresses her passion for the whole subject.

In spite of its 300+ pages, the book is quite accessible and unintimidating. Most chapters are 20 pages or less. The book is broken up even more (in a pleasant way) by informative sidebars from her husband Steven--which generally discuss resources, activist opportunities, laws, etc.--and the end-of-chapter pages by her eldest daughter Camille (now 19)--which include menu suggestions and a few recipes. Camille's sections are the only ones that get remotely "how-to," and that's only because of the recipes. The recipes are straightforward and, thus far, quite tasty (I've already made the Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp, which is hands-down one of the best summer desserts I've ever tasted or baked).

I grew up in a family who grew nearly every piece of produce it consumed, but this book was still really educational and inspiring. Kingsolver brings an exquisite eye to detail to all her descriptions of plants, seeds, etc.--so much so that I actually ate asparagus for the first time in eons (I've always hated it) on Saturday. (Camille's suggestions on cooking it proved true--it was quite tasty.) Those of you who are already green thumbs will enjoy the insightful, humorous prose here; those of you whose thumbs might best be described as black can live vicariously through Kingsolver.

And folks anywhere on that continuum might be inspired, and although this won't tell you how to do everything, it can point you in the right direction. The text itself mentions a lot of resources (cookbooks, seed sources, etc.), but there's a handy resource list at the end, including books, websites, organizations, and so forth. The plethora of cookbooks on turning local/farmers' market finds into delicious meals makes this book worth its weight in gold. You might also be prompted to try something really new for you--I had always been intimidated at the thought of making my own cheese, but the chapter on it and the resources provided has inspired me to attempt mozzarella, at least.

Right now, the book is only available in hard cover; list price is $26.95 (Borders has it 20% off, which is where we got it). If that's too much for you, go check out The AVM Website to get recipes, more info on the book, a resource list, and some updates since the book's writing.(less)

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05/28/07

La Buffett rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: end_times_and_good_eats

Read in June, 2007

There's nothing like reading about a wholesome nuclear family picking cherries in the orchard when you're an orphan in a highrise.

In my case, Barbara Kingsolver is preaching to the choir - but she's certainly no preachier than any other writer on this subject, and her anecdotes are more persuasive than most. Though undoubtedly tiresome for knowledgeable readers, I genuinely appreciated the urls and contacts provided in the sidebars. As the sort of book stacked in prominent pyramids...more

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05/22/07

Amy Formanski rated it:

(review of isbn 0060853573)

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: vegetarians, health-conscious folks

It took me awhile to get through this one but it was worth it. Barbara Kingsolver is respected novelist and essayist, but to my knowledge this is her first full-length nonfiction book. She describes her family's first year of moving to a farm in Virginia and trying to grow as much of their own food as possible. They raised their own chickens and turkeys. Anything else that they couldn't grow themselves, they bought from other local farmers.

The idea first seemed extreme even to me, a...more

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06/26/08

Tania rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: favorites, food, memoir, non-fiction

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: the common person

I really enjoyed this book, and this is coming from someone who usually avoids non fiction. It helps that I'm already a fan of the author's - her writing style is so engaging, filled with a mixture of creative flourishes, insightful observations and a down-to-earth sense of humor.

This book was truly inspiring. I've never given much though to the food I eat, or where it comes from. I'm basically the very person that Kingsolver constantly rails against in this book - a consumer of fast...more I really enjoyed this book, and this is coming from someone who usually avoids non fiction. It helps that I'm already a fan of the author's - her writing style is so engaging, filled with a mixture of creative flourishes, insightful observations and a down-to-earth sense of humor.

This book was truly inspiring. I've never given much though to the food I eat, or where it comes from. I'm basically the very person that Kingsolver constantly rails against in this book - a consumer of fast food and lots of corn syrup, who hasn't a clue which fruits and vegetables actually belong to which season.

But after reading this book, I find myself thinking about my food every time I open my mouth to take a bite. I've decided to try and buy locally grown produce wherever possible (which, admittedly is easy in Southern California, compared to other states). I've decided to pay the extra few cents to buy organic products. I've also been making an effort to cook more - something I never had a desire to do before. But the way Kingsolver talks about how satisfying it is to create a meal, to reconnect with nourishing our bodies, and to appreciate food as that which sustains us...it really opened my eyes.

That's not to say I'm going to give up drinking Dr.Pepper, or stop eating fast food. I may be inspired, but I'll admit I'm not that willing to change everything I do (at least not right away). But I do believe that by changing some of my buying and eating habits (and hopefully my husband's), that we will be happier and healthier in the long run, as well as supporting the hardworking people who grow our food.

As for the book itself, it was a thoroughly entertaining read. I enjoyed the chapters that focused more on family life and lessons learned along the way (cheesemaking, turkey-mating, gardening), but my eyes tended to glaze over a bit on the chapters that were more like angry essays on corporations and mass-food-production. I also was hoping to learn more about the struggles of living a life of a "locavore", but I realized that this family already had a lot of farming and animal husbandry knowledge, so that took away some of the mystique. I guess I was secretly hoping for more farmyard shenanigans and winter struggles!

At times Kingsolver's tone struck me as a little elitist and holier-than-thou. After all, we aren't all so fortunate as to own a large plot of farmland and the time to tend to it. I understand the points she was trying to make, but some of her rants felt rather hostile toward the "common person" who commits various culinary sins. And being a "common person", that included me.

After all, I was here to learn and I felt like I was being criticized harshly in the process! But maybe that's the reason why the book made such an impact on me.

That aside, it was an entertaining book and I would recommend it to the "common person".(less)

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06/26/08

Jaspreet rated it:

Read in July, 2008

While I was waiting for my plane to take off on Sunday night, I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. A lot of people were upset that we had such a long delay; however, I was glad to have the extra time to finish my book and postpone meeting the Food Police. I thought that the book finished pretty strong; it read like one of Kingsolver’s novels. I loved the story of the turkey having babies and the image of Kingsolver seeing the new babies with her daughter. A lot of the book is dense a...more While I was waiting for my plane to take off on Sunday night, I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. A lot of people were upset that we had such a long delay; however, I was glad to have the extra time to finish my book and postpone meeting the Food Police. I thought that the book finished pretty strong; it read like one of Kingsolver’s novels. I loved the story of the turkey having babies and the image of Kingsolver seeing the new babies with her daughter. A lot of the book is dense and heavy with information; the ending felt optimistic and tied it back to the story. Essentially, this is a story about a family who set out on a journey.

After I finished the book, I realized that I do believe in eating local, but as a person with limited budget, time, and land space, I find that challenging. One of the messages I am taking away from the book is how doing a little bit can make a big difference. In Seattle, I already shop at the local food co-op; although, I am not buying very much fresh produce. When I return to Seattle in the fall, I am thinking of asking Dude if he would want to share the cost of a vegetable and fruit box with me. When I move to Massachusetts, Partner to-be and I will likely get a box filled with vegetables and fruit from a local farm to help us eat better and support the local economy. While I am living with my family in Maryland, I just try to get produce and things (when I shop) from the closest destination. Unfortunately, this means that things are still coming from out of state, but I am trying to work within my circumstances for the summer. Even though my family does not do a lot of “hard core” local shopping and eating, I do remember that my mother would take my brother and me to a pick your own farm when we were little. We had so much fun picking our own beans and other vegetables. She also had a garden in our old house and it was always a fun event to help plant. Weeding was not so much fun, but a good way to be outside. The tomatoes we picked always tasted better than the ones we would buy. My parents have moved into a new community which has weird rules, including one that says they cannot have a garden! How messed up is that?!?! In spite of the restriction, my brother has been growing jalapenos, tomatoes, eggplant, basil and bell pepper in various pots on the back porch. I am impressed that his rule breaking has lead to some fresh produce. One of my family’s favorite places to shop continues to be the Amish Farmer’s Market. All of the items come from Pennsylvania which is out of state, but we (or I guess my mother since she does most of the shopping) knows the vendors and how they produce the various items we consume. Again, the food always tastes better from produce to cheese to ice cream than most things we find at the general store.

My in-person book club meeting, the first one for me is over a year—I think, is on Sunday. For that meeting, I am in charge of preparing the meal. I am going to get ingredients from the Farmer’s Market and hopefully come up with something delicious. Of course, I am curious about how other people reacted to the book; I would especially like to find out what kind of food behavior and rituals they remember being modeled for them or participating in when they were little.

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06/12/08

mindi rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: 2008, favorites, to-buy

Read in July, 2008

still processing my thoughts with this one.

loved most of it, really disliked a few things. the good definitely outweighed the bad, though, so 4 stars, for now. :)
***

okay, coming back to this, a few notes about this book:

i want a copy to own. there was so much good information, good recipes, brilliant ideas that i would love to incorporate over time

(the woman who grew the amazing heirloom tomatoes in her greenhouse during the winter comes t...more

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06/08/08

Diana rated it:

(review of isbn 0060852550)

bookshelves: books-of-the-week, nonfiction

Read in June, 2008

Because we are trying to live a fairly green life style this fit right into my mindset. We live in a sustainable home built from tires and earth with a planter that stretches almost 100 ft. along the south facing wall of windows (our house). It just seems right to grow food here. Because of the planter were able to eat summer squash in January and have fresh tomatoes year around. I also started raising chickens this past March. And, when the banana trees mature we won't have to worry about the ...more

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