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Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food
In this thoughtful essay collection, Berry thoughtfully explores some of his favorite topics: the politics of food, mindful eating, and sustainable farming. He embodied—and wrote about—these practices for decades, laying out his philosophy in nonfiction works like this one and weaving it through his characters’ lives in his fiction. While a small percentage of Berry’s readers are likely to be farmers, we can still care about what and how we eat and make choices accordingly, and enjoy this peek into one of the great minds on these topics. If you’re new to Berry’s writings, this is a hospitable place to begin.
About the Book
Publisher’s description:
Only a farmer could delve so deeply into the origins of food, and only a writer of Wendell Berry’s caliber could convey it with such conviction and eloquence. Long before Whole Foods organic produce was available at your local supermarket, Berry was farming with the purity of food in mind. For the last five decades, Berry has embodied mindful eating through his land practices and his writing. In recognition of that influence, Michael Pollan here offers an introduction to this wonderful collection.
Drawn from over thirty years of work, this collection joins bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Pollan, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, as essential reading for anyone who cares about what they eat. The essays address such concerns as: How does organic measure up against locally grown? What are the differences between small and large farms, and how does that affect what you put on your dinner table? What can you do to support sustainable agriculture?
A progenitor of the Slow Food movement, Wendell Berry reminds us all to take the time to understand the basics of what we ingest. “Eating is an agriculture act,” he writes. Indeed, we are all players in the food economy.
Other books in the "15 food memoirs and nonfiction books"
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