Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

published	2007 by HarperCollins
first published	2008
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0060852550 (isbn13: 9780060852559)
pages	384
description	Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat. ...more [close] Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat. "As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain. "Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel. . . ." Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet. "This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."
date added	01-02-07 edit book

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Alison rated it:

03/08/08

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 into your ...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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Camille rated it:

01/24/08

Read in January, 2008

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Review

So I had high hopes for this book to be a highly entertaining saga of one woman’s quest to produce virtually all of her own food; I wasn’t entirely disappointed, but I also wasn’t entirely satisfied. But despite that, the book proved to be educational and even enlightening at times, and I came away with a renewed zeal for organic food and meat, and a blossoming interest in locally grown/made food.
Her adventure was interspersed with facts about the fo...more Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Review

So I had high hopes for this book to be a highly entertaining saga of one woman’s quest to produce virtually all of her own food; I wasn’t entirely disappointed, but I also wasn’t entirely satisfied. But despite that, the book proved to be educational and even enlightening at times, and I came away with a renewed zeal for organic food and meat, and a blossoming interest in locally grown/made food.
Her adventure was interspersed with facts about the food industry, organic farming, tales about rural life, and essays written by her daughter and husband on various environmental issues. Some of the more interesting parts of the book to me were the actual, nitty-gritty details of what it takes to accomplish something like this. Initially I assumed that she just decided she was going to do this and just would experiment to see what worked; however, several times she mentions that she has done things like raising chickens or growing a certain kind of vegetable before. I can’t explain why, but this left me feeling a little disappointed; kind of like the feeling you would have if you wanted to see the dress rehearsal, but instead showed up for the well-rehearsed play. All in all though, it was still an interesting account. And despite not expecting the litany of facts and environmental issues that were thrown at me throughout the book, I feel slightly more educated about the food industry (even if I learned those facts from a heavily slanted source), and I found myself whole-heartedly agreeing with her on some points, such as these:
“Grocery money is an odd sticking-point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history…Whether on school boards or in families, budget keepers may be aware of the health tradeoff but feel compelled to economize on food – in a manner that would be utterly unacceptable if the health risk involved an unsafe family vehicle or a plume of benzene running through a school basement. It’s interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains.” (115)
An excellent point I think. I don’t we realize a lot of the time what we are actually eating, and most of the time it’s actually quite disgusting. As a parent I feel it’s especially important to worry about what we give to our kids because we are setting them up with habits or health problems for life. That’s why, when faced with the choice of organic or not (especially in produce), ninety percent of the time I will pay the extra bit to buy organic, hoping that by doing so I can spare them exposure to extra chemicals (see this well known study for more information about kids and pesticides: http://www.medscape.com/viewar....
But organic costs so much more; aren’t they just trying to make a pretty penny, preying on our insecurities? While I think that they definitely, like other food industries, are trying to make money, I do think that the “care component” of their business is up a notch from the regular (non-organic) food industry, because their farming practices are sustainable at least. And like Kingsolver points out: “Insisting to farmers that our food has to be cheap is like commanding a ten-year-old to choose a profession and move out of the house now. It violates the spirit of enterprise. It guarantees bad results.” (116) I witness those “bad results” in the form of “food” every time I go to the store.
In addition to pushing organic food, she also pushes the idea of buying local, thereby supporting local farms and dairies and the reducing the need for transporting food all over the country, (and from other countries) contributing to environmental pollution. I don’t know about you, but I struggle to even find organic things, let alone organic and local. But I’m not opposed to it either. Farmer’s markets seem to be the way to go on those things, which require an extra trip; I wonder if Ms. Kingsolver would justify the pollution my extra trip to the farmer’s market would require? (smirk).
And one more point where Kingsolver and I agree completely is a surprising one (surprising to me, coming from a career woman like Ms. Kingsolver). She writes: “When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daly life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families’ tastes and zest for life; we received in return minimum wage and the Lunchable. (Or worse, convenience-mart hot doge and latchkey kids). I consider it the great hoodwink of my generation.” (127) She then goes on to say that to consider “mealtimes as a creative opportunity, rather than a chore, is an option.” (127) Well said!
As you can see, none of the above really has anything to do with the minute details of growing one’s own food for a year, but they are very interesting concepts to consider. At any rate, the book is informative, and strikes a chord with me in terms of things I am concerned about (the food industry, organic food). A few points I would have liked to see in the book are a chart if what, exactly, is in season when, and more applicable details for the person who would like some definite gardening advice.
The book is good food for thought, and for the most part I enjoyed reading it. ...less

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Kate rated it:

01/30/08

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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Mary Louise rated it:

05/08/08

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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Jessica rated it:

01/24/08

I have been on the wait list so long at the library for this book that when my friendly librarian who knows me by name (see previous posts) pointed out that it was in, it was like Christmas. I was especially happy to have an entire long weekend of pool time available to read it (yes, I AM a spinster!) to make sure I got it read before I had to return it.
Several friends from college had been discussing the idea of local eating with me, and when I saw one of my more favorite authors came out wi...more I have been on the wait list so long at the library for this book that when my friendly librarian who knows me by name (see previous posts) pointed out that it was in, it was like Christmas. I was especially happy to have an entire long weekend of pool time available to read it (yes, I AM a spinster!) to make sure I got it read before I had to return it.
Several friends from college had been discussing the idea of local eating with me, and when I saw one of my more favorite authors came out with a new book on that very topic, I was intrigued. Kingsolver and her family live on a large farm in rural Virginia. As a part of healthier living, and the lessening of their family's own carbon footprint, the Kingsolvers resolve to become "locavores" for a year. It entails either growing your own, or only purchasing foods grown/made in your county. Several other books on the same subject advocate a 100 mile rule, or a 250 mile rule, depending on your proximity to areas realistically able to grow a complete diet. Each Kingsolver, including the littlest, who in my opinion steals the book, chooses a "luxury" item to eat despite its origins outside the radius. Items chosen include coffee, spices, chocolate, and dried fruit.
The Kingsolver family dives into this project with more gusto than the average apartment dweller would be able to muster. They buy chickens and turkeys for meat, as well as a hoarde of chickens for fresh eggs. On top of the foray into animal husbandry, they also become full blown farmers, growing so many vegetables that I hadn't even heard of them all. The harvest and maintenance on a garden of this size seems to stretch the abilities of a family of 4 who still maintain regular jobs. They learn to plan for the lean months by canning, freezing, and maintaining as much of the earth's bounty as they possibly are able. They also made homemade cheese, and bread, once they were able to find a local flour source. They did survive the entire year without any starvation. While reading I wondered if Kingsolver edited out the complaints for McDonalds' fries or a good old fashioned Coke....but then again they live somewhere rural, so they probably couldn't have acquired it rapidly anyway.
I must admit that I found this whole idea very interesting. Eating fresher, healthier food that I know the origins of definitely sounds good. I would love to be able to have a garden here, but my apartment does not permit....although there are times when my living room full of afternoon sun feels like a hothouse. The idea just does not seem sustainable for the average non-landowner.
As a part of my reading, and thinking about this topic, I explored several farmers markets in my local area. To be honest, I was not quite sure what produce even grew in this area, nor at which times a year. I was well versed in the produce from the town I was raised in. Mom used to take us to pick strewberries, apples, and.....the dreaded snowpeas.....dreaded not for their taste, which we loved, but the fact that it took hours to pick a bushel. Think of how flat those things are! At any rate, this area does not seem as blessed with produce as my home town. Most importantly, like the daughter in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I was frightened by the dearth of local fruit. Granted, it is mostly past summer's most bountiful time, but all I was able to find were some local early apples. I would have to have fruit as my "luxury" item....or move to Hawaii.
I definitely give the book a thumbs up for making me think more about where my food comes from. I cannot say that I am going to make a pact as serious as their family to follow it to the letter, but lessening one's carbon footprint on a world with slowly dwindling resources is a good idea. I am going to try to buy local vegetables when possible, as well as fresh meat. I also am going to try my hand at cheesemaking once the weather gets a little cooler. I don't think I could cook without real sugar, or olive oil, and I have yet to find any sugar canes or olive groves near the Ohio River. I'm just not ready to give up pineapples.....and I haven't found a homemade gatorade plant here yet.........less

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Sharon rated it:

08/04/07

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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Lena rated it:

11/04/07

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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Renee rated it:

04/13/08

bookshelves: 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 our lo...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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Kate rated it:

04/19/08

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Kate by: Marian
recommends it for: people who eat

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver with Steven Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
NY: Harper Collins, 2007
Hardcover: $26.95 370 pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-085255-9

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is the story of the author, Barbara Kingsolver’s family’s adventure moving from urban Tucson Arizona to a rural Tennessee farm. The move may be what many Americans might call, extreme but not just because of the geographical location, but because the family’s lifestyle and ...more

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Valerie rated it:

01/21/08

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in January, 2008

I finally finished this book. I only say that because my brother reviewed it, and said it was "easy, fast reading". I beg to differ... I had checked it out from the library, and as I made my way laboriously through the pages, I found not one, but two different little scraps used as bookmarks, and I'm assuming they were left by the two readers before me, marking the pages where they gave up.

Then why did I give this book four stars? Because I think the information it imparts i...more I finally finished this book. I only say that because my brother reviewed it, and said it was "easy, fast reading". I beg to differ... I had checked it out from the library, and as I made my way laboriously through the pages, I found not one, but two different little scraps used as bookmarks, and I'm assuming they were left by the two readers before me, marking the pages where they gave up.

Then why did I give this book four stars? Because I think the information it imparts is important. And although it wasn't easy reading for me, it wasn't terribly difficult. Mostly, I guess, I found it to be slow. I also found her tone to be rather preachy at times, which irked me (especially concerning vegetarianism). I was expecting to be drawn in more, as I was with her novels (some of which I had problems putting down). This was just less captivating to me in terms of the content.

But back to the rating: it did change the way that I'll purchase food in the future. Before reading it, I thought I was doing pretty well by buying mostly produce, dairy and meats at the store (pretty much trying to avoid anything that comes in a package). Barbara Kingsolver and her family took their food buying to a whole different level, eating only food that was locally produced - by themselves or others - for an entire year.

She introduced the concept of not eating meat that was produced by CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) and I think that's one way in which I'll change my purchasing. I think that apart from giving up meat completely, I should at least buy my meat from sources that treat their animals more humanely.

From this point on my family will only be eating eggs from free-range vegetarian fed chickens - they have about half the cholesterol of factory-farmed chickens (which are fed chicken and beef by-products) and more vitamin E, beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids. Who knew? Not me...

Also, only organic potatoes from here on out - because they grow underground, conventional potatoes are among the most pesticide-contaminated vegetables. Some still contain traces of pesticides that have been banned since 1978 but still linger in the soil.

I'll also be attempting to use a bread machine (we all know someone that has one sitting around unused that we can borrow). It's the least I can do if I'm not going to make my own cheese (like Kingsolver and my brother).

Overall, the book is filled with good information like this... but the "story" part - where she talks about life on the farm and the actual cultivation of the food - was pretty slow.

As much as I'd like to, I simply can't buy everything locally, because I live in the midwest, and I need my seafood. Oh - and my ketchup....less

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Joanna rated it:

01/06/08

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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Moire rated it:

05/11/08

Read in May, 2008

What a terrific book. Almost every page made me hungry, and nearly every chapter inspired me to jump out of my chair and start turning backyard to garden. Short of that, the author also made it clear how one can make small changes that go a long way towards being more "local."

I do take issue with the author's chapter on how they "harvest" their poultry. While agreeing wholeheartedly with the cruelty of feedlots and standard slaughterhouses, she seems to take a rather...more What a terrific book. Almost every page made me hungry, and nearly every chapter inspired me to jump out of my chair and start turning backyard to garden. Short of that, the author also made it clear how one can make small changes that go a long way towards being more "local."

I do take issue with the author's chapter on how they "harvest" their poultry. While agreeing wholeheartedly with the cruelty of feedlots and standard slaughterhouses, she seems to take a rather dismissive tone towards vegetarians and vegans, which I find disappointing. It is as though she's never encountered a vegetarian who recognized that such food choices are really only possible for the well-off. No thoughtful vegetarian that I know (and I know a lot, as a life-long vegetarian myself) would argue that starving people in Africa should be encouraged to be vegetarian out of kindness to the animals. The point of vegetarianism as I see it is very simple: do not cause suffering or kill other living things unless it is necessary. If you are starving, it is clearly necessary; if you are not, then you have the responsibility to think more carefully about how you impact the planet and life around you. I was disappointed that Barbara Kingsolver used some of the same ridiculous jibes about "how do you think a plant feels about being eaten" that, believe me, as a kid growing up vegetarian you hear from your less enlightened classmates at least annually. I have a great deal of respect for people who are consistent, who raise their own animals, giving them a good life, and face the job of killing them (as humanely as possible) with a full measure of respect for the life they are about to sacrifice. If one is going to continue eating meat, then clearly this (or at least purchasing free-range, etc.) is the way to go. Personally, I think those of us who aren't in a basic struggle for survival have the responsibility to at least consider taking the next step, but as always everyone must make these decisions for themselves.

This chapter aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the window into what it would be like to, in effect, step back in time and live off the land. Perhaps even more inspiring was the image of grounding children in these long-forgotten secrets of where food comes from, of how plants grow, of what food is in season when, of how to build a "food heritage" that one can be proud of. A beautiful year-long journey, and an inspiration for me once I finally buy a house and start putting down roots.
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Miriam rated it:

05/12/08

bookshelves: food-related-books, self-satisfied-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-satifaction makes it hard ...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-satifaction 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 three 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.
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Lisa added it

02/02/08

Read in February, 2008

Barbara Kingsolver is a pleasure to read, maybe particularly because I usually agree with her politically, but I like to think I would enjoy her style, at least in fiction, even if I didn’t feel such accord. I like William Safire, for instance, even though politically we are divided; then again I don’t read him for politics but for grammar, which we have in common.

At least two friends think that Michael Pollan’s privileged status affects or even negates his message, or makes it or him ...more Barbara Kingsolver is a pleasure to read, maybe particularly because I usually agree with her politically, but I like to think I would enjoy her style, at least in fiction, even if I didn’t feel such accord. I like William Safire, for instance, even though politically we are divided; then again I don’t read him for politics but for grammar, which we have in common.

At least two friends think that Michael Pollan’s privileged status affects or even negates his message, or makes it or him untenable, because poor people don’t have the same options as wealthy. I can’t find their exact words, but anyway I remember disagreeing. He is perfectly open about his income, and says, perhaps not explicitly but maybe, in Omnivore’s Dilemma, that money makes life easier and expands your options.

I loved Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Kingsolver even made me think I might like to cook. But the book’s huge flaw, that penetrates and weakens (if not negates) her theme, is her absolute silence on the issue of money. Money allowed her family to have two properties, in Tucson and Virginia (money allowed her family to have even one); it allowed them to move from aridity to fertility; it allowed them to break their backs tending their homestead instead of breaking their backs worse to achieve a less rewarding, less healthful sustenance.

She also says nothing about population. Agriculture allowed increases of population by feeding more people with more (or at least dependable), but lower quality, calories. And here we are, with quantities of people eating mostly low quality food (McDonald’s, millet…). Population pressure leads to the occupation of marginal land (like that around Tucson [sorry, Rachel]). Not everyone can have their own little homestead in fertile, rural, undeveloped, adequately rainy Appalachia, because there just isn’t enough Appalachia to go around, in this country less alone on the planet. Mass, industrialized food production goes hand-in-hand with concentrated, untenable population.

Kingsolver and her family told their own story and their own reasons. She doesn’t have to come up a solution for civilization. But there was a definite tone — which I did not perceive in Omnivore’s Dilemma — that theirs were the best reasons. As it happens, I agree with her reasons and her solutions, but I can also see that hers cannot be everyone’s. I wish she had acknowledged that. ...less

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Shaina rated it:

09/09/07

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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