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Barbara Kingsolver, who may be better known for her Poisonwood Bible, has also written a non-fiction book about her family's quest to live as much as possible off locally grown food.
1. The language in this book is reminiscent of the food she describes; luscious, flavorful, with surprising twists. Just reading about canning tomatoes makes you want to do it (even if you HAVE canned and know how much work it is).
2. She's extremely passionate about the WHY of buying locally-- because it's good for the local economy, good for the environment (because you're not paying to ship your food from far away), and so on.
She touches on the lack of a "food culture" in America. Unlike a lot of countries, we don't really have a national "menu" of any sort; this, according to some people, is part of why we're adrift in a realm of fad diets and obesity all at once. People whose ancestors grew up eating one sort of food married people whose ancestors ate something else entirely, and now they all eat at McD's.
Of course, her answer to "food culture" is "eat locally"-- which leads to point #3.
3. The author and her family had a swimming time of it, moving from the desert of Tucson to the hills of Virginia. According to her calculations, the value of the food her family farm produced (a.k.a. what it would cost to buy the same stuff retail) was about $1.70 a meal, plus 50 cents worth of other materials not locally available (flour, oil), plus $100 a month to the local farmers. This comes out to about $75 a week.
Now, before this recent rise in food prices, I budgeted $100 a week for our groceries and other needs (cat food, litter, cleaning supplies, and so on); $75 of that was for groceries, and I'm only feeding 3, not 4. Her family definitely eats better than mine, and for cheaper; sounds like the way to go, doesn't it?
Consider, though-- she deliberately moved to a place in the country where food can be grown. She moved into a house that had some land. She doesn't really talk much about making this idea work if you don't own land, or don't live in a good climate and can't afford to move. Face it, there are places (and she admits Tucson is one) where the local flora don't make very many succulent dishes, unless you're willing to supplement soil and water.
Doing the right thing-- and, from all she says, buying locally IS the right thing-- shouldn't be something only for the rich, or for land-owners. So what's the answer for city folks? Container gardening? Windowsills? Hydroponics in the spare room?
I don't know yet. I'm still proud of myself for using every bit of the chicken, these days, and that'll have to be enough.
1. The language in this book is reminiscent of the food she describes; luscious, flavorful, with surprising twists. Just reading about canning tomatoes makes you want to do it (even if you HAVE canned and know how much work it is).
2. She's extremely passionate about the WHY of buying locally-- because it's good for the local economy, good for the environment (because you're not paying to ship your food from far away), and so on.
She touches on the lack of a "food culture" in America. Unlike a lot of countries, we don't really have a national "menu" of any sort; this, according to some people, is part of why we're adrift in a realm of fad diets and obesity all at once. People whose ancestors grew up eating one sort of food married people whose ancestors ate something else entirely, and now they all eat at McD's.
Of course, her answer to "food culture" is "eat locally"-- which leads to point #3.
3. The author and her family had a swimming time of it, moving from the desert of Tucson to the hills of Virginia. According to her calculations, the value of the food her family farm produced (a.k.a. what it would cost to buy the same stuff retail) was about $1.70 a meal, plus 50 cents worth of other materials not locally available (flour, oil), plus $100 a month to the local farmers. This comes out to about $75 a week.
Now, before this recent rise in food prices, I budgeted $100 a week for our groceries and other needs (cat food, litter, cleaning supplies, and so on); $75 of that was for groceries, and I'm only feeding 3, not 4. Her family definitely eats better than mine, and for cheaper; sounds like the way to go, doesn't it?
Consider, though-- she deliberately moved to a place in the country where food can be grown. She moved into a house that had some land. She doesn't really talk much about making this idea work if you don't own land, or don't live in a good climate and can't afford to move. Face it, there are places (and she admits Tucson is one) where the local flora don't make very many succulent dishes, unless you're willing to supplement soil and water.
Doing the right thing-- and, from all she says, buying locally IS the right thing-- shouldn't be something only for the rich, or for land-owners. So what's the answer for city folks? Container gardening? Windowsills? Hydroponics in the spare room?
I don't know yet. I'm still proud of myself for using every bit of the chicken, these days, and that'll have to be enough.
