Gina Dallara: January 2009 Archives

By Courtney Cochran

In Barbara Kingsolver's fascinating new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,  the bestselling author of The Poisonwood Bible chronicles a year in which her family - having relocated to a small Virginia farm - commits to consuming only those foods grown on their own small patch of land or on those of neighboring farms.  And while the premise of the book - a return to the local food culture on which our nation was initially based, and which has long been trumped by corporate farming and industrial food production - is fascinating, even more so may be the insights the book affords into Americans' warped view of just how food is created today, and how it arrives at our tables (clue: we tend not to think too hard about it, to our own detriment).