Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Lastnight, I went to the 'This Is Not a Reading Series' event put on by Pages bookstore featuring best selling author, Barbara Kingsolver and husband, Steven L. Hopp. The presentation was based on the book, Vegetable, Animal, Miracle: A Year of Food Life and the couple's experiences in making the book.

If you aren't familiar with this gem, here is a blurb about it from the Pages website:

'ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE: A YEAR OF FOOD LIFE is Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling memoir of a year of living and eating locally – paying very close attention to the provenance of everything that she and her family consumed. As Kingsolver says, “Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we’d know the person who grew it. Often that turned out to be ourselves as we learned to produce what we needed.” Beyond serving as a chronicle of the first year of the Kingsolver family’s ongoing experiment, Animal, Vegtable, Miracle is a call to arms. Kingsolver eviscerates the state of our food supply – from seeds controlled and patented by multinational corporations to a virtually two-crop system (corn and soybean) that leaves North Americans one pathogen away from massive famine. It’s also a rumination on the pleasures of growing and harvesting your own food. Above all, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a joy to read.'

The presentation was really wonderful. Barbara is such a lovely storyteller and very funny. Steven was also a great presenter and provided the back story to the book but was referred to the 'doom and gloom' part of the presentation as he was delegated to providing the statistics and academic portion of the presentation.

Prior to meeting, the couple had already been involved in gardening and this project was simply an extension of the way they were currently living as a family. The project began while their two daughters were 8 and 19, and the entire family was involved in the process that unfolded in the book (the youngest child even had her own little egg business!).

The couple offered anecdotes ranging from turkey husbandry (including a verrry interesting video clip - who knew?!) to their process of storing food for the winter; their community's support in facilitating the project to the involvement of petrochemicals in the food distribution chain. They talked about their journey in retraining themselves back to food culture and how they viewed food entitlement. Barbara commented on how strange it was to walk into a grocery store and see a kiwi. She felt that certain items (particularly, ones that were out of season but still being sold in the market) were now more of a luxury than something she was entitled to. The project changed their attitudes towards the food they ate and those who were responsible for producing them. People asked them what they missed the most during that year or more specifically, "Didn't you miss...?" They responded by saying it was a matter of changing their attitude towards items that weren't local to them and not seeing it as a loss but rather, as an opportunity to experience the foods near to them. People also questioned the flavouring of items and how they were able to address this. Steven answered by asking if they had ever tasted an item straight from the garden and by going on to say that if anyone ever has, then they would know that this is when an item was its most flavorful.

With regards to petrochemicals, Steven offered a simple solution and shocking solution: If every (U.S.) citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce the country's (in this case, the U.S.) by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. (Shocking).

Of course, I'm missing many, many details of the thoughtful presentation that was given. If you're interested in learning more about their experiences, please feel free to read the book. I know I am.