Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life in Around the World in 80 Books

Jun 04, 2010 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: memoir-and-autobiographical-essays, social-issues-social-sciences

I am so sorry I read this book. I used to love Kingsolver, and now I don't. One chapter in and the preachiness was already killing me. She is just so gosh darned pleased with herself for being above the every day riff-raff who (gasp!) BUY their food in a supermarket. I grimly forged ahead and it didn't get much better.

The basic premise is that Kingsolver and her family decide to spend one full year eating only foods that are locally grown, either raised in their own garden or nearby. So they pa I am so sorry I read this book. I used to love Kingsolver, and now I don't. One chapter in and the preachiness was already killing me. She is just so gosh darned pleased with herself for being above the every day riff-raff who (gasp!) BUY their food in a supermarket. I grimly forged ahead and it didn't get much better.

The basic premise is that Kingsolver and her family decide to spend one full year eating only foods that are locally grown, either raised in their own garden or nearby. So they pack up their belongings and move from Tucson to a small farm in Virginia that they owned. What's that you say? You don't already own a small farm in VA, complete with charming authentic farmhouse, large vegetable garden, AND guest cottage? Well, then, we already know that the Kingsolver-Hopp family is better than you.

The passages in which she describes things she learned are okay, and the plain gardening parts are good, but the rest of it ... No. It's just FILLED with proselytizing and ridiculous assumptions of superiority.

One cashier wishes for no rain for one day, and she extrapolates that to mean ALL non-farmers are completely out of touch with the earth.

The family goes on vacation and stops at a diner to eat, and we are immediately informed "A handmade sign let us know the jukebox take is collected at the end of every month and sent to Farm Aid." Oh. So she doesn't stop at just ANY diner. Oh no. She goes to a diner that is just so freakin' awesome and better than the rest of us that they even give their jukebox profits to charity. And not just ANY charity, but a FARM charity. Whoo. Hoo.

She takes a quick cheese-making course while on vacation and comments "Okay, I know. You were with me right up to that last one. ... What kind of weirdo makes CHEESE?" That's just one example of how Kingsolver is constantly, annoyingly, assuming what her reader already knows and thinks. Does she not realize that most people who would read her book WOULD find cheese-making interesting? I'm willing to bet that a significant percentage of her readers already make their own cheese.

I just don't understand why Kingsolver doesn't realize that she's preaching to the choir here. Most people who are motivated to read this book ALREADY know that "potatoes have plant parts" (she met ONE friend who did not know this and she really crowed about it) and which fruits are in season when. Michael Pollan covers this same ground without talking down to the reader.

In one passage, Kingsolver describes the farmers who supply organic produce for Appalachian Harvest: "Red Wing work boots, barbershop haircuts, Levi's with a little mud on the cuffs, men and women who probably go to church on Sunday but keep their religion to themselves as they bring a day's work to this packing house inside a former tobacco barn. If sanctimony is an additive in their product, it gets added elsewhere." It's interesting that she understands that sanctimony is unattractive and downright off-putting, but yet she can't seem to keep herself from being incredibly, insultingly sanctimonious.

Right now, I'm wondering how she feels about her own book, since it's not locally-printed - I mean, think of all the petroleum used to produce and ship all these books! all the trees needlessly chopped down! thank heavens I'm at least reading a library book.

This is one of the longest reviews I've written, because I had such high hopes for this book and I'm so completely disappointed!

***

I did finally finish this book, and I'm glad I did, because the passages about her trip to Italy and her experiences breeding turkeys were enjoyable. But they weren't enough to save it. ...more

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Mar 24, 2009 Kara rated it it was amazing

What didn't I learn, should be the real question. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a book I'm putting on the what everyone should read list and it will be a repeat gift for the years to come. I started reading this book in Verona, Italy where I enjoyed meal after meal of locally produced, raised, etc food. Everything was from the region and everything tasted fantastic.
Growing up outside of Philly where farming is still local, relevant and has a history I was lucky to have a basic education in seas ...more

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Nov 22, 2011 mstan rated it liked it

Shelves: american, food, non-fiction, src-winter-2011-12

Eh. I was really excited about the first thirty pages, which I read while I was in Los Angeles with my environmental science-y friend, Kathy, and which made me push her into requesting a copy of the same book on her library system...

Then I realised that, wow, I had committed myself to reading reams of information tracts. This was not what I had expected - a year of some gardening failures and successes, some family tensions, and some... humour. Nope, in fact, this book is as heavy as lead in man Eh. I was really excited about the first thirty pages, which I read while I was in Los Angeles with my environmental science-y friend, Kathy, and which made me push her into requesting a copy of the same book on her library system...

Then I realised that, wow, I had committed myself to reading reams of information tracts. This was not what I had expected - a year of some gardening failures and successes, some family tensions, and some... humour. Nope, in fact, this book is as heavy as lead in many parts, with no funny self-deprecation to leaven its sobering effects.

I did learn a lot from Kingsolver, and my views are pretty much aligned with hers - only I need to think much more carefully about how I'd apply some of her advice to the Singaporean context. While I've thought many times in recent years of becoming a vegetarian, I don't know a) if I have the willpower to do so and b) if it really is what my principles are forcing me towards. Eating animals that have led happy lives and eating vegetables that are grown without pesticides are more congruent with what I believe in... but how should I do so, in a non-agricultural country like Singapore?

That said, it would be interesting to find exactly where the meat in the wet market comes from (neighbouring countries?), and under what circumstances the animals lived... Living more ethically involves eating more consciously too, and I certainly agree with Kingsolver that most of us don't really bother to do that (except to lose weight, maybe).

Kingsolver's voice grated on me despite the essential rightness of her messages, because she seems so much like the privileged American trying to appear like 'one of us'. There is a chapter in the book where she mentions how she has been listed as one of America's most 'dangerous' people due to her upper-class ideals, and she juxtaposes this piece of news - very deliberately - against the fact that she was slaughtering animals when she heard it, with blood all over her t-shirt.

Then, there was her starstruck trip to Italy, where she rhapsodised over the fresh produce, the agriturismi, the wealthy farmer-who-doesn't-look-like-one.

If only Kingsolver's family had faltered a little in their year of 'simple' living in the Appalachians. If only she had talked more about how they'd caved in to their dependence on coffee - which was mentioned in passing as one of the concessions they gave to themselves, but then quickly used as a segue to talk about fair-trade coffee. I think the narrative would have been a lot more convincing to those who aren't already converted to her cause.

Perhaps this would also have read better in bits and chunks, the chapters digested like the essays they are.

NB: I've never read any of Kingsolver's novels. I am curious, though... ...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Sarah rated it did not like it

Shelves: book-club-dm

Oh dear God, how I hated this book. Kingsolver comes across as the most holier-than-thou, self-righteous person I have ever had the displeasure of reading. She doesn't write about just her family's decision to eat only things they produced themselves; she passes judgment on everyone else in the world who eats food from a grocery store.

A big thing for her seems to be the availability (or lack thereof) of fresh produce. At one point, she likens eating tomatoes out of season to teenage girls havin ...more

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Aug 09, 2007 Madeleine rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, bio-memoir

This book is making me want to bike down to the Ballard farmer's market every sunday and eat nothing but locally-grown organic food (this is resulting in teasing from my roommates, but I like the book anyway). I especially like the way it actually sort of addresses how eating local/organic/slow food is so tied up with privilege, and how it doesn't necessarily *have* to be. It's also just a great read, as are all of her books if you ask me. ...more

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Aug 07, 2007 Donna rated it really liked it

I am enjoying this book. Included is plenty of "opinion and information" about how we Americans do "food" lovingly wrapped in wit and home-grown charm. I love the set-in sections written by the author's oldest daughter and others written by her husband. Even for someone like me who plans to do more investing in local CSA farms rather than becoming a farmer myself, the book has been a fun way to look at a sobering subject. ...more

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May 19, 2010 Erin (NY) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, non-fiction

This book was a lot better than I thought. It definitely made me not want to eat anything non-organic/non-local ever! I liked the 3 voices that were all a bit different.

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