World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 39)

Mixed Media Food for Thought jacket, even): “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s that simple, he says; the rest is just explication. Of course, Pollan does not have the field to himself these days. There seem to be more food-related books on the shelves than brightly colored boxes in the cereal aisle. Ann Vileisis’ Kitchen Literacy stands out in this clamor for recognition. A writer, historian and cook, Vileisis is a relative unknown compared to Pollan, a line cook to a head chef. But in only her second book, she serves up a cultural history of American food that makes an excellent companion piece to Pollan’s prescriptive book. Recently, a video of a cow being dragged to slaughter and bound for grocery store meat counters made its way up and down the media chain— from Internet video to national broadcast news and back. This video serves as the perfect counterpoint to Vileisis’ book. As Americans, we seem to revel in ignorance about the origins of our food. It takes a sensational video to get our attention. But Vileisis hopes that something more subtle can also catch and hold our attention. With Kitchen Literacy, she prepared a many-coursed meal of historical anecdotes that trace how we got from real food and self-reliance to a reliance on cheap meat and expensive advertising. Vileisis whets our appetites with the story of a woman in 18th century Maine who knew her food sources intimately, serving fresh and foraged foods. The book traces the effects of early markets and the advent of industrial canning on our relation to food. Vileisis doesn’t leave us with a bad taste in our mouths. She saves room for a discussion of the local-foods revival, the contemporary counter-trend that embraces and defends real food. SAVING SEEDS Preserving biodiversity is becoming more difficult as farmers look to a narrowing pool of commercial seeds. But a thriving community of scientists and gardeners all over the world is working to preserve our agricultural heritage by propagating, saving and storing seeds that have not been cloned or hybridized. Classic Clip On Non-Violence Mohandas Gandhi New Directions Paperback | $13.95 Seed Savers Exchange www.seedsavers.org My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop non-violence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world. Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for the Vegetable Gardener by Suzanne Ashworth The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy W. Bubel; illustrated by Frank Fretz Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving by Carol Deppe Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers: Marginality and Memory in the Conservation of Biological Diversity by Virginia D. Nazarea www.heifer.org September/October 2008 | WORLD ARK 39 http://www.seedsavers.org http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked and Answered Digging Up the Past Not a Drop to Drink Facing the Ogres of Progress Mixed Media Heifer Bulletin Heifer Spirit World Ark Market Calendar First Person

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

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