This book could've been seriously booooorinng. I mean it's about a family who decided to eat whatever they could grow/raise on their farm for a year. Luckily, the author was the fabulous Barbara Kingsolver (Poisonwood Bible) and the family was her family. This book is worth reading just to soak up her words and revel in her dry humour.The basic premise is that we should eat food that didn't cost 1000s of litres of petrol to get to our table and that fresh, in season food is cheaper and better for us. So, Barbara, her husband and two daughters move to their 40 acre farm in southern Appalachia, Virginia and resolve to take the "eat local" mantra to a whole new level. This book is billed as "part memoir, part journalistic investigation" and contains everything from how to work out whether a vegetable is likely to be in season, how to get Turkeys with the reproduction instinct bred out of them to produce baby turkeys and that too much Zucchini is not a good thing.
Barbara's husband and eldest daughter also contributed snippets to the book - I didn't really bother with these as compared with Barbara's writing they just seemed to get in the way.
How do I think it translates to Australia? My first thought is that with a highly urbanised society with farming land vastly removed from the population we need to re-consider the concept of "local". Local for us isn't going to be 100km. Perhaps more like 500km.
I highly recommend it.
4 comments:
I can't wait to read this...my copy (thank you again!) is waiting for when I finish my current two read (which are dragging a little).
Hmmm...100kms. From Melbourne's CBD that would get you as far out as, bits of the Yarra Valley, Lorne, Wonthaggi, and Ballarat. My knowledge of Victoria's primary produce is fairly limited, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get enough from that area to feed a city of 3 million+. A re-definition for Aussie circumstances may well be in order.
I just have to get this book - I love Barbara Kingsolver - and Nutmeg has recommended it too, loved KPs poem - quite exceptional - and my 11 year old is reading the young readers edition of Maos last dancer
I loved that book!
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
For those of us living in the country, eating local or atleast eating what you grow is something we have always done. Here are a few secrects for you. Older meat tasts beter, such as hogget instead of lamb. Hogget also has the ability to contribute something, such as wool, before it dies. eat food when it is in season, as it is fresh and tases better. Food you eat out of season, other than frozen peas, is stored for upto 9 months or comes from China. Look for grower markets in your area as the food was either picked that day or the day before.
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