A Book Review..With 100% More Opinions Than Your Average Review!

And now for something completely different.

I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver.  I can't really tell you what drove me to request this book from the library.  As I grew up, my parents always had a garden, although the size of it dwindled significantly after we moved to Texas, I am not sure if that's because of suburban acreage or climate-related issues.  My parents both came from farming families.  My mother's especially depended on what they produced...she came from a large poor rural family and they grew and "put up" copious amounts of food.  My mother canned and pickled.  My brother and I have canned tomatoes together as well.  I've been thinking a lot on the concept of self-sufficiency lately, so I think that's what sent me to this book.

When I first started reading, I was kind of put off by the author's situation.  Having a well-paying portable career certainly made it easier for her to drop her evil consumerist ways and just pop over to the conviently owned farmstead.  As the book progresses, I was still left feeling like they were all invincible, there were no "hand of God destroying the crops" moments.  No farm animals died unplanned deaths, even the children were never whiny and petulant over the loss of beloved junk foods.  It was all just too good to be true. 

Now, having said that, it was an interesting book.  I enjoyed the story part of the book, where they progress through the year and she talks about the different things they are doing and growing.  Interspersed throughout the book are essays by the author's husband and daughter.  The husband's essays I could've happily done without.  Most of them expound on evil corporate ways of manipulating our food chain.  He even got his own acerbic font.  The daughter's essays were basically her own personal viewpoint on the events occurring, with recipes and menu plans.

Near the end of the book, the author recounts a conversation with a friend of hers: 

"How do you encourage people to keep their hope,"  Joan asked, "but not their complacency?"  She was deeply involved that spring in producing a film about global climate change, and prooccupied with striking this balance.  The truth is so horrific:  we are marching outselves to the maw of out own extinction.  An audience that doesn't really get that will amble out of the theater unmoved, go home and change nothing.  But an audience that does get it may be so terrified they'll feel doomed already.  They might walk out looking paler, but still do nothing.

So, last night, I found myself at Howdy's sister's home.  They are interesting people, well educated, wealthy, but frugal in their spending decisions.  They eat very nutritiously and have a small garden of their own every year.  One of the things that intrigued me about the book is the concept that so much of what we eat from the grocery store is essentially sterile...it can not reproduce by itself.  Much of the produce section is hybridized and the chickens and turkeys are all artificially inseminated and incubator-raised.  I brought up the subject while we were there and commented that I'd really like to try a farm-raised turkey this year instead of a traditional plastic-coated grocery store model.   You'd have thought I was saying that I was going to go out and chain myself to a local live oak tree to protest turkey abuse.  I had the same problem when I broached the subject of trying out the farmer's market on Saturday morning...Howdy commented that it takes a lot of gas to get all the way down there, so is it really a wise environmental choice?  And that's the crux of the problem for me.  It seems like such a good idea, but it fails in completion.  It's hard to imagine that changing one lightbulb from incandescent to florescent is going to stop an iceberg from melting somewhere.

So, I'm not sure this book really succeeded if it's goal was to convert me to a "locavore."  Houston doesn't provide a lot of options for locally-grown food, especially this late in the year.  It's not a cheap solution, either.  Our diet has already suffered because of our economic situation.  I know buying locally grown stuff supports local people, but there are local people working in the grocery store, too.  Am I putting too much thought into this and not enough effort?

What do you guys think?