good books
I prepared the following book summaries for an upcoming *cino “road map” on food. I’m sure Kirstin won’t mind too much if I go ahead and post them here. Especially if I encourage you to order them through one of *cino’s affiliates so *cino can make a little much-needed and much-deserved cash (I am not in any way paid for the preceding plug, except for the warm feeling it gives me).
“Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating” - Jane Goodall, Gary McAvoy & Gail Hudson. Warner Books, 2005.
Jane Goodall turns her attention to the place of food in our consumer culture in her latest book, co-written with Gary McAvoy and Gail Hudson. This is an extremely thorough treatment of the subject, beginning with Goodall’s observations on the role of food in chimpanzee social dynamics and the ecological and social impact poor food choices in the rest of the world have had on Africa. The co-authors cover topics from the history of food in human culture and current challenges we face such as chemical-dependent agriculture, genetic engineering, factory livestock farming, fast food and childhood obesity, the “looming water crisis,” and the corporatization of organic standards; to healthy and hopeful alternatives we as producers and consumers of food can embrace including understanding the difference between “deep” and “shallow” organic food, grass-fed meat, vegetarianism, protecting family farmers, and the importance of seasonal and local commerce. Many of the chapters end with sections titled “What You Can Do” and the book includes an extensive list of additional resources.
“Farmageddon: Food and the Culture of Biotechnology” - Brewster Kneen. New Society Publishers, 1999.
This book is for anyone who wants an in-depth discussion of the history and development of biotechnology and genetic engineering. Kneen provides an expert critique of the biotech industry as the empiricization of food and the reproductive principle itself. Kneen also provides an articulate, but limited, discussion of the Christian theology that underlies the modernist drive for technological “dominion” over nature. Highlights include a tongue-in-cheek “Farmageddon Lexicon,” a discussion of the science of GE (“genetic engineering” not “General Electric”), and solid recommendations for further reading.
“Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on my Family Farm” - David Mas Masumoto. Harper Collins, 1995.
In the early 1990s David Mas Masumoto, a California peach and grape farmer, almost tore up his remaining Sun Crest peach trees because there didn’t seem to be any place in the industrialized fruit industry for a delicious peach with no shelf life. “I have a recurring nightmare of cold-storage rooms lined with peaches that stay rock hard, the new science of fruit cryonics keeping peaches in suspended animation,” he writes. This book is a lyrical and passionate account of a year in the life of a farmer struggling to find a new way to farm, and a new market among those “who still appreciate the wonderful taste of a good peach.”
“Living at Nature's Pace: Farming & the American Dream” - Gene Logsdon. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2000.
Wendell Berry writes in the foreword to this book “Gene’s best qualification is that he loves farming. Most people who have influenced and written about farming in our time have not loved it at all; they have held it in contempt.” A lifetime in agriculture informs this collection of essays on topics like the difference between the income of small family farmers and tenured university agricultural “experts,” and what it suggests about the health of our culture’s relationship with our food producers.
“Harvest: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm” - Nicola Smith with photographs by Geoff Hansen. The Lyons Press, 2004.
This is a very handsome book documenting a year in the life of Jennifer Megyesi and Kyle Jones’ small-scale organic farm in Vermont. The book celebrates the real joys of a rural lifestyle, without slipping into romantic clichés or pulling any punches about the economic realities, hard work, and sheer willpower involved in life on Fat Rooster Farm. The book also provides a fresh perspective on rural culture, as well as the ways the politics of agriculture play out in the lives of ordinary families.