Saturday Morning Book Review

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. by Barbara Kingsolver

Have you ever thought about where your food comes from? If your answer to this question is, sure dummy, Krogers, you need to read this book. Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Poisonwood Bible, and her family took on the challenge of living for one year from food they either grew themselves or purchased from local farmers. Kingsolver, her husband, and two daughters not only met the challenge, but lived to write about it. Living for a year on only locally produced food might seem like a daunting task for most, but the Kingsolver clan lived this year on their rural Appalachian farm. They had the land and knowledge needed to grow the majority of their vegetables, and raise their own chickens and turkeys for eggs and meat. They even made their own cheese. I am not sure how feasible or practical this would be living in the city or the suburbs, I have tried and have failed miserably. I can not grow anything, I have even had to throw out plastic plants because they began to look so bad, and there is no way I am going to kill, gut, and pluck my Thanksgiving turkey. I know our grandparents did all these things, and I think that we would all be better off if we did them now, but I will just have to be a vegetarian.

Kinsolver is a wonderful writer and makes this year of her life sound delightful. Despite the topic, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is a very entertaining book. It is quite humorous in many spots, including the chapter on killing, gutting, and plucking the birds. There is even sex in it, turkey sex that is, which is an eye opener.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone concerned about today's food supply, which should be everyone, and to anyone who likes to garden.

In the upcoming weeks, I will review the book, Plenty, which touches on the same subject, but is written by a Vancouver couple who lived in a tiny apartment and based their diet on food items that were grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment. These two books give us two new terms for the upcoming year; locavoire - a person who bases their food consumption from items that are locally grown and produced, and 100-mile diet - people who restrict their food consumption to items that are grown and produced within 100-miles from where they live. You will be hearing more about these terms in the media and on this blog.

Find a link for Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, under Favorites - Book Reviews.

Happy reading,
Laura