I recently finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, following Michael Pollan’s recommendation.

Barbara and her family make a big move, from dessicated, urban Tuscon to the verdant valleys of Virginia (ah, alliteration.  An absolute apex of wry, witty writing.)

Should I call her Barbara?  Is Ms. Kingsolver more appropriate?  No, I’ve just spent the last year eating and gardening with the family.  We’ve discussed turkey mating and pumpkin gutting.  I think we’re on a first name basis.

Barbara Kingsolver’s husband Steven L. Hopp, a professor of environmental studies, adds in brief, factual paragraphs informing the reader about factory farming, sustainable agriculture, and the local food movement.  Her college student daughter adds recipes and reminisces at the end of chapters, and all recipes are available online at AnimalVegetableMiracle.com.

It’s a family project, and a family book.

The book is arranged by month, as the Kingsolver-Hopp family navigates the dinner table eating locally, seasonally, and avoiding the grocery store as much as possible.  They’ve made a real commitment, a commitment that begins with a chilly trip to the farmer’s market in March.

Well, actually it begins with the decision to, you know, actually begin.

I decided we should define New Year’s Day of our local-food year with something cultivated and wonderful, the much-anticipated first real vegetable of the year…we were waiting for asparagus. (pp. 24-25)

Each chapter focuses on a particular seasonal fruit or vegetable.  Asparagus in March, greens and morels in April, tomatoes and tomatoes and more tomatoes in August. Other chapters focus on specific events, such as choosing heirloom seeds, cheesemaking, a trip to Sicily, or killing the poultry when it’s time to fill the freezer.

Throughout the garden anecdotes, recipes, and instructions are Barbara’s thoughts on real food, eating healthful fresh food, and how to fit it in a tight budget and busy schedule.

The main barrier standing between ourselves and a local-food culture is not price, but attitude.  The most difficult requirements are patience and a pinch of restraint- virtues that are hardly the property of the wealthy.

…We’re raising our children children on the definition of promiscuity if we feed them a casual, indiscriminate mingling of foods from every season plucked from the supermarket, ignoring how our sustenance is cheapened by wholesale desires. (p.31)

Barbara has a lot to say on the budget issue, actually, and those are the parts I loved best about the book.

An embarrassing but arguable point is that we’re applying deadly priorities to our food because we believe the commercials…how successfully they convince us that cheap food will make us happy.

…How delusional are we, exactly?  Insisting to farmers that our food has to be cheap is like commanding a ten-year-old to choose a profession and move out of the house now.  It violates the spirit of the enterprise.  It guarantees bad results. (p. 116)

She rightly points out that real food does take more time, but that time doesn’t have to be taken away from the family.  Time spent nourishing your loved ones has worth and merit.

Yes, I have other things to do.  For nineteen years I’ve been nothing but a working mother, oone of the legions who could justify a lot of packaged, precooked food if I wanted to feed those to my family.

…But if I were to define my style of feeding my family, on a permanent basis, by the dictum, “Get it over with, quick,” something cherished in our family would collapse…I’m discussing dinnertime, the cornerstone of our family’s mental health.

Yes, yes!  Family meals aren’t something to get out of the way.  It’s time to savor being together.  It’s time to nourish our bodies and nourish our hearts, coming together every day for the purpose of sustaining our life.  Together.  And that task deserves more than the minimum amount of effort so we can get on with catching our favorite shows or other hobbies.

Barbara does eat meat, but it’s not because she’s amoral.  She loves the plants, too.

If I put emotion in charge of my diet I would not only be a vegetarian, I’d end up living on air and noodles like a three-year-old because I also feel sorry for the plants.  In virtuous green silence they work as hard as any chicken or cow.  They don’t bleat or wail as we behead them, rip them from their roots, pull their children from their embrace.  We allow them no tender mercies. (p. 265)

This is more than a recipe book, but more of a comprehensive, neighborly look at the local and slow-food movement.  Barbara takes us to a diner run by a farmer, using only local ingredients and we see how a blow-out 50th birthday party is planned.  She discusses WIC and provides examples of successful local organic farm coops.

I can see why Michael Pollan recommended it.  It’s an easy read that provide lots of food for thought, and even though I borrowed it from the library, I’m probably going to buy a copy of my own to keep on the bookshelf.  It’s a great introduction to both the hows and whys of the real food lifestyle.

Have you read the book? Tell me what you think!