“What’s that?”
My daughter, Siena, age 9, pointed to a small grey blob. I paused in our bedtime reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to examine the stain in the right margin of page 56. “A tiny spider? Silverfish?"
“No, looks more like chocolate,” I guessed.
She, the youngest in a household of readers, nodded in understanding. While dinners are strictly social (cherished family conversation time, no TV or books), most solo eating in our house is done in the company of books.
Mornings Siena props a Katie Kazoo behind her cereal bowl and steadies it with her left hand. Head bent forward, her right hand travels a slow, circular path from milk to mouth, stopping only to rest the spoon in the bowl as she turns the page, her eyes never leaving the book.
Crumbs, stains, and watermark are an inevitable part of our library--and not just in the cookbook section. So I am grateful for the latest Center for Ecoliteracy newsletter alerting me to a link combining two of my favorite things: Books and Food!
Philip H. Howard, an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, has compiled this searchable online bibliography of books and films related to community, food, and agriculture. A quick search revealed that several of my recent favorites like Full Moon Feast and Food Not Lawns haven’t made the list yet, but several older classics and must-reads like Fast Food Nation, Fatal Harvest, and Wendell Berry did.
Professor Howard created the database as a resource for his Community, Food and Agricultural Systems course. So far the list only has 200 items, but Howard plans to keep updating the site, so kudos to him creating it and making it available online. Great start!
Be sure to check out the rest of the site as well, especially his graphs on the consolidation of the organic food industry. (One that surprised me was learning that Hershey’s owns Dagoba chocolate.)
Co-op America’s Responsible Shopper site is another great resource for finding out who the major players in agribusiness (Cargill, Monsanto, ADM) and the food industry (Nestlè) are and what they are up to.
As consumers, we have a lot of power. The choices that we make every day determine the world we live in. This year we will elect a new president. But we don't have to wait 4 years to vote. As Michael Pollan has said: "you can simply stop participating in a system that abuses animals or poisons the water or squanders jet fuel flying asparagus around the world. You can vote with your fork, in other words, and you can do it three times a day."
And here's who is behind the names on my shelf (in the picture at the top of this entry):
Muir Glen, Bearitos & Spectrum: Heinz
Seeds of Change: M&M Mars
Annie's: Solera Capital
Angie!!! You're back! Yaay!
Posted by: Alice Q. Foodie | February 08, 2008 at 08:59 AM
I can't believe you've been posting since October and I didn't know it - I will put you back on my blogroll. Let's get together sometime!
Posted by: Alice Q. Foodie | February 08, 2008 at 09:05 AM
Hey Alice.
Yes, I'm back!
Thanks for putting me back on your blogroll. http://aliceqfoodie.blogspot.com/
Sorry I missed the Chowdown at the Imperial Farmers' Market. But I would love to get together with you soon.
Posted by: Angie | February 10, 2008 at 01:28 PM
Do me a favor and shoot me an email would you? alice dot q at cox dot net. The last couple of times I sent you emails I don't think they went through.
Posted by: Alice Q. Foodie | February 10, 2008 at 04:52 PM
Your photo of the mystery stained book reminded me of the following website. It's a slideshow on Flicker of a recipe card selection from way back in the day of recipe cards. I love the personality the stains, crumpled edges and blurred ink give the cards. Each one tells a story of not just the recipe but of the happenings of a long forgotten kitchen. You can't get that online, no sir! Oh wait, I did get it online...http://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_g/sets/412209/show/
Posted by: Kristin | February 13, 2008 at 10:56 PM
What a great link--he has scanned all of the cards in his mom's recipe collection. I love them--the handwriting, the misspellings, the stains, the names of the people and the dishes.
One thing that caught my eye on several cards was the ingredient "spry." What is that? Seems to be a type of fat.
Sure enough, a search revealed Spry to be a type of shortening, introduced in 1936 as a cometitor to Crisco.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jenny%E2%80%99s_Real_Life_Stories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jenny
Posted by: Angie | February 14, 2008 at 10:11 AM