The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

by Michael Pollan

An economy organized around a complex division of labor can usually get these jobs done for a fraction of the cost, in time or money, that it takes us to do them ourselves, yet something in us apparently seeks confirmation that we still have the skills needed to provide for ourselves. You know, just in case.

It may be little more than a conceit at this point, but we like to think of ourselves as self-reliant, even if only for a few hours on the weekend, even when growing the stuff yourself winds up costing twice as much as it would to buy it at the store.

Some irony in that last part there given how much ink was spilled in the first two portions of the book about all the hidden costs of foods produced at scale.

That the fungi are so steeped in death might account for much of their mystery and our mycophobia. They stand on the threshold between the living and the dead, breaking the dead down into food for the living, a process on which no one likes to dwell.

Even if you’re better at it than I was (my two hours in the water produced a single keeper), there’s no question that you burn more calories looking for abalone than you can possibly collect, making this a perfectly absurd human enterprise.