A list of books that we strongly recommend, and, well, ok,
we do get a bit of tribute from Amazon if you order via these links:
Mark Kurlansky is one of my favorite
writers: his prior food-related works include the modern foodie
must-reads, "Cod" and "Salt". This book is about nonviolence,
which sounds like a departure from food, but somehow it fits right in
with his prior works.
Starting with a preface by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the book
surveys the history of "a dangerous idea", and makes the case that
nonviolence is much more of a threat to tyrants than guns and bombs.
From Jesus to Constantine to Urban II, then all the way to Ghandi,
Dubcek, King, and the present sorry state of the world, Kurlansky
puts it all in perspective. The names and stories are familiar,
but here they collect and crystallize into one whole clear and
irrefutable case of not only how the world needs to be changed,
but also how it CAN be changed.
I'll join His Holiness in hoping that everyone will read this little
book and hear its message!
If you think that a) the world
is flat, or b) the Sun revolves around
the Earth, then you probably won't appreciate this book. For the
rest of us, it is an exciting exploration of how humans fit into the
family tree of all living things, extant and extinct. This
book is an entertaining and clarity-provoking trip backwards from the
present to the beginnings of life in the promordial soup.
Dawkins, a professor of zoology at
Oxford, is probably one of the clearest and enlightening thinkers of
our time. He seamlessly integrates the evolution of species with
the evolution of ideas. He coined the much-misused, but still very
useful term "meme", which is to cultural information what a "gene" is
to genetic information. In the course of the zoological
explorations of this book, he takes the time to share his insights into
the philosophical aspects of evolution, and takes time to elucidate
some of the foolishness that passes for scientific reasoning. One
of my favorite discourses in the book is about the "tyranny of the
discontinuous mind". And yet it turns still!
One of Dr. Dawkin's first
works from the 80's, which puts to rest any notion that an "intelligent
designer" was involved in the creation of life on Earth. Well, at
least for most of us.
Michael Pollan's latest work, a truly clearheaded look at the so-called
modern food system, including a critial look at the organic
industry. We especially enjoyed the chapters about Joel Salatin,
one of the most creative farmers we have had the pleasure of
meeting. Some of the material in this book will seem familiar if
you've read Michael's pieces in the NY Times over the past few years,
but here he brings it all together with such clarity that everyone who
farms, or eats, really ought to read it.
We thought we knew a good bit
about cows, pigs, cats, dogs and people before we read this book, but
it turns out we were in the dark about how they really think. Temple
Grandin shows us how animals think, and contrasts the visual thinking
of animals to the word-bound ways of typical humans. As parents
of children in the autistic spectrum, we found the book particularly
revealing in how it contrasts, chapter by chapter, animal visual
thinking with both typical human thinking and autistic thinking.
Joel's manifesto, which is quite different in style than
Michael's. Joel and I are very different people, from different
backgrounds, and while we might disagree on some political or
philosophical points, we are definitely singing from the same songsheet
when it comes to how food ought to be grown and sold and how the
farmer-consumer relationship pervades every aspect of human society,
and just how much is at risk with the globalization of food production.
A thoughtful book about food,
language, and culture in five different regions of the
Mediterranian. I got my copy as a present from Harold Magee,
whose inscription includes "one of my favorite books".
Among the joys that I received from reading this book was her
description of how illiteracy affects cooking, how the written word and
number binds the senses and blinds us to the fact that our ingredients
are alive, and defy being frozen by static symbols.
This in turn brought me insight into my Grandma Pauline's culinary
gift, and how, thanks to her, despite my technical background and
education, I am a truly illiterate cook, at least when I'm cooking well.
This book gets a lot of wear at my house: it is one of the first places
that I look when I wonder about the hows and whys of food.
Nina and I got our first copy
of this book when we got married a couple dozen years ago--I had grown
up with an earlier edition in my mother's kitchen. Since then,
we've bought a copy as a wedding present for almost everyone we
know. Each of our au pairs have gotten a copy to take back
home with them after their year in our family: several of them have
leafed through our copy and transcribed our smudgy notes on certain
favorite recipes.
When Nina and I make a dish for the first time, we read five or six
cookbooks' versions of it, and then, having surveyed the literature, we
usually start with Marion's recipe as our starting point.
BobolinkLLC
Dairy
Nina & Jonathan White, Cheesemakers
42 Meadow Burn Road
Vernon, NJ 07462
www.cowsoutside.com
