FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The Palo Alto Farmer’s Market Reading List
In Defense of Food
Author: Michael Pollan
256 p.
Publisher: Penguin Press, 2008.
This book is available in hardcover
Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action—"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow. --Anne Bartholomew from Amazon.com
Food Politics
Author: Marion Nestle
510 p.
Publisher: University of California Press, Second Edition 2007.
This book is available in hardcover, softcover, audiobook
Nestle (chair, nutrition and food studies, NYU) offers an expos‚ of the tactics used by the food industry to protect its economic interests and influence public opinion. She shows how the industry promotes sales by resorting to lobbying, lawsuits, financial contributions, public relations, advertising, alliances, and philanthropy to influence Congress, federal agencies, and nutrition and health professionals. She also describes the food industry's opposition to government regulation, its efforts to discredit nutritional recommendations while pushing soft drinks to children via alliances with schools, and its intimidation of critics who question its products or its claims. Nestle berates the food companies for going to great lengths to protect what she calls "techno-foods" by confusing the public regarding distinctions among foods, supplements, and drugs, thus making it difficult for federal regulators to guard the public. She urges readers to inform themselves, choose foods wisely, demand ethical behavior and scientific honesty, and promote better cooperation among industry and government. This provocative work will cause quite a stir in food industry circles. -from Library Journal on Amazon.com
This Organic Life: Confessions of Suburban Homesteader
Author: Joan Gussow
240 p.
Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub, 2001.
This book is available in hardcover, softcover.
Two decades ago, when nutritionist Gussow was giving fiery speeches about the importance of eating locally and seasonally, she realized that it was time to put her convictions into practice. In this combination memoir, polemic, and gardening manual, she discusses the joys and challenges of growing organic produce in her own New York garden. Initially, Gussow had planned to write about her misadventures in buying a 150-year-old house on a Hudson River floodplain. That story was incorporated into this book, but many of the boring remodeling details should have been omitted. Interesting points include a description of establishing her new garden, tips on making compost and on growing fruits and vegetables successfully in a northern climate, and various recipes using the garden bounty. Throughout, Gussow stresses the need to live responsibly "in a society where thoughtless consumption is the norm." Her constant reminders that industrial agriculture produces tasteless, environmentally destructive food well intentioned though they may be start sounding like a litany after a while. Yet, despite its flaws and self-righteous tone, this work offers encouragement to urban and suburban gardeners who want to grow at least some of their own produce. A suitable addition to gardening collections in public libraries. -from Library Journal, on Amazon.com
The omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals
Author: Michael Pollan
450 p.
Publisher: Penguin Press, 2006.
This book is available in hardcover, paperback, and CD versions
An omnivore is a person or an animal that will eat all kinds of foods including vegetables, meat, fish and dairy products. Pollan, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley defines the Omnivore's Dilemma as the confusion that human American omnivores face when trying to make healthy food choices in a land of abundance. By describing four very different meals that he buys or prepares himself, Pollan shows the many environmental, biological, and cultural factors behind each bite. The four meals are: a McDonald’s meal in his car; a dinner cooked with items from Whole Foods, a meal with fresh ingredients from a small utopian Virgina farm; and a meal with items that he hunts and forages.
Says Publishers Weekly: “It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.”
Animal, vegetable, miracle : a year of food life
Authors: Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
370 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins, c2007.
Also available in CD and cassette forms.
When Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they decide to spend a year on a locally produced diet, paying close attention to the origins of their food. "Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we'd know the person who grew it," she says. "Often that turned out to be ourselves as we learned to produce what we needed, starting with dirt, seeds, and enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals, and enough sense to refrain from naming them."
This book follows the family through a season of planting, pulling weeds, expanding their kitchen skills, harvesting their own animals, trying to save heritage crops from extinction, and learning the time-honored rural art of getting rid of zucchini. Inspired by the flavors and culinary arts of a local food culture, they explore farmers' markets and diversified organic farms at home and across the country. The book is part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and part cookbook-- complete with original recipes.
Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm
Author: David Mas Masumoto
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: HarperOne (May 31, 1996)
Here is the review from Library Journal: “This book is a delightful narrative on the life of a Japanese American peach and grape farmer in the San Joaquin Valley near Del Rey, California. With poetic flair and a sense of humor, Masumoto offers his perspectives on the joys and frustrations of raising and tending peaches and grapes. He describes his relationship with the weeds and insects that invade his fields, the unpredictability of the weather, his desire to treat workers fairly, and the realities of the market structure. Reading about Masumoto's attempts to produce high-quality peaches and his fears that rain at the wrong time will destroy his drying grapes will be a truly educational experience for those not familiar with the complexities of farming. Masumoto observes with awe the diversity of nature over four seasons and his family's obligation to plan their lives around the seasons.”
The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution
Author: David Kamp
Publisher: Broadway Books Paperback (Jul 17, 2007)
Amazingly enough, just twenty years ago eating sushi was a daring novelty and many Americans had never even heard of salsa, says Kamp. Today, he continues, "we don't bat an eye at a construction worker dipping a croissant into robust specialty coffee, city dwellers buying just-picked farmstand produce, or suburbanites stocking up on artisanal cheeses and extra virgin oils at supermarkets.” Kamp is a New Yorker who has worked as a writer and editor for Vanity Fair and GQ for more than a decade. True to this style, he gives us a gossipy, yet well researched history of the evolution of American dining, snacking and food shopping from World War II to present. Two things to keep in mind before reading—there may be more than you need to know here about the sex lives of famous chefs. What’s more, the food scene in Middle America, our heartland, is given less emphasis than kitchen and restaurant trends in New York City and California.
Giving Good Weight
Author: John McPhee
272 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (November 26, 1979)
"You people come into the market—the Greenmarket, in the open air under the down pouring sun—and you slit the tomatoes with your fingernails. With your thumbs, you excavate the cheese. You choose your stringbeans one at a time. You pulp the nectarines and peel the sweet corn. You are something wonderful, you are—people of the city—and we, who are almost without exception strangers here, are as absorbed with you as you seem to be with the numbers on our hanging scales." So opens the title piece in this collection of John McPhee essays. "Giving Good Weight," is a story of farmers selling their produce in the Greenmarkets of New York City. It is told by McPhee, a journalist who went to work for an upstate farmer, and then sold peppers in greenmarkets in Harlem and Brooklyn. This book is now out of print, but is available at local libraries and for sale online.
The Really, Truly, Honest-to-Goodness One-Pot Cookbook
Author:Jesse Ziff Cool
156 pages
Publisher: Chronicle Books (August 24, 2006)
Long time farmer’s market supporter and local chef and restaurateur Jesse Ziff Cool, presents 65 recipes that truly need just one pot and only one pot (or skillet, saute pan, or Dutch oven), start to finish. Included are dishes for family suppers like Moroccan Chicken with Couscous, or ideas for larger gatherings such as Braised Chipotle-Orange Pork with Yams. Recipes also offer ways to either lighten up a dish or, when everyone is really hungry, make it more substantial. Plus there are plenty of tips for choosing the perfect pot, techniques on proper timing, and do-ahead strategies to make the prep as easy as the clean-up. Jesse's latest book, Simply Organic, will be released by Chronicle Books in the spring of 2008.
