Michael Pollan is at it again, and that’s a good thing.
After a brief hiatus following his bestselling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma,
Pollan is nearly ready to release his next work titled,
In Defense of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating
.
Pollan says that the work grew out of questions he received about The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In a recent interview with Grist’s Tom Philpott, he said: once I’ve ”looked into the heart of the food system and been into the belly of the beast” what should I eat, and what should I buy, and if I’m concerned about health, what should I be eating? The short answer? “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” To get the more nuanced response, you’ll have to pick up the book which will be out in January, 2008.
We know what’s up on Pollan’s plate - what’s next for you?
- Preorder your copy of In Defense of Food here.
- Read Philpott’s full interview (highly recommended) here.
- Read The Jew & The Carrot’s interview with Pollan here.
Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog
For many of you, having guests at a shabbat meal means often juggling various dietary restrictions preferences that guests may bring to the table. Michael Pollan makes the interesting point that the French consider it improper to impose your diet onto your host, and yet how many of you can recall meals in which you were left with virtually nothing to eat as a result of your kashrut/vege- pesce- ovo- lacto- tarianism/ or any possible allergies. Peter Berley’s The Flexitarian Table may hopefully solve at least some of the issues. Read more »
There have been some very interesting issues raised about kashrut in recent months on The Jew & The Carrot, particularly regarding the compatibility of traditional kashrut with the ethical, ecological, gastronomical, and cultural sensibilities of many of our readers and and contributors. And of course, there are the reports about the the blatant abuses of some of the kosher meat processors. However, while the kosher dietary rules (which I personally observe) are an important source and means of expression for Jewish values about food, they are not the only ones. There are also many rituals connected with the table and the seasons that have also shaped how we think about and eat our food.
Reading books at the dinner table is something most of us Jews take for granted, based on our experiences of the haggadot scripting our Passover seders, Tu bishvat haggadot for Tu Bishvat seders, benchers for birkat ha-mazon and zemirot after Shabbat and holiday meals. Read more »
A friend once told me that she thinks our generation is missing mega-heroes. “Of course, of course,” she agreed to the point that there are countless men and women doing world-changing work. Still, she insited that we are lacking that charismatic, almost mythic leader - Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Susan B. Anthony, Nelson Mandela - who can unite and energize a movement towards a common goal.
Well, chef Dan Barber (left) and environmental and food writer Dan Imhoff (right) might not yet be household names, but after a mere hour in their presence last week, I felt a renewed fire to change the world.
Barber and Imhoff were the featured speakers last Wednesday on an NYU-sponsored panel called, “Sustainable Agriculture vs. Industrial Food. ” Despite the 4:00pm weekday start time and lackluster title, the room was packed to capacity - testament both to the mushrooming interest in all things food (and the impending Farm Bill vote), and also to Barber and Imhoff’s growing star power. Here’s what these, if I may, budding heroes had to say:
Read more »
Every now and then I’m struck by the sheer awesomeness that is the Internet. What once would have taken at least twenty minutes of searching through library card indexes (not to mention driving to the library and maybe even a paper cut) now requires no more than a few seconds of our time. From the average annual rainfall of the Amazon rain forest (9 feet per year, in case you’re wondering) to how to make firecrackers (the carrot kind, not the exploding kind) - it’s all right there, at our fingertips. This is all quite impressive if you stop to think about it, but it wasn’t until last Friday that I realized just how many things the internet can make possible, because it was then that a crazy notion sprung into my head. You see, the 2007 Jewish Environmental Bike Ride is just around the corner and I wanted to fundraise for it - but how could I do so when I wouldn’t be attending the actual event?
I decided to email the folks over at Hyperion Books, Chronicle Books & Ten Speed Press with an idea. If I held a fundraising raffle on my blog, would they donate cookbooks for the prizes? To my surprise, they said yes, generously donating more than 50 books between them. And it is that glorious news that I bring to all you book lovers out there, not to mention those of you who just plain love Hazon and want to take part in a fun online event.
From now until September 3rd I will be fundraising for the Jewish Environmental Bike Ride on my site, Baking and Books, where a donation of only $5 enters you into a raffle with an inspiring collection of cookbooks as prizes. As of this moment there are 56 prizes, most of which are being sent to my tiny apartment until winners are picked on the last day of the ride. So please, donate now! Enter the raffle and ensure that, come September, my home won’t have been completely overrun by cookbooks. (Ok, so it already is overrun thanks to my personal book collection, but you don’t want things to get any worse do you? Do you??)
Click here to find out more about the raffle, and also, take a gander at the prizes so far…
Itemized list of prizes:
I’m sitting at a small local café, Kafe Kerouac, named after the Jack Kerouac renowned for his wandering around America in his book On the Road, and I’ve stumbled upon a book on macrobiotic cooking. The book, Aveline Kushi’s Complete Guide to Macrobiotic Cooking, was published in my birth year, 1985. From a quick comparative glance with a more recent book on the subject, macrobiotics does not appear to have changed in the past two decades.
According to the Kushi Institute, macrobiotics is “the art and science of health and longevity.” It is based on eating seasonally, locally, and whole foods, and has been known is both Eastern and Western cultures for a very long time. Kushi’s book discusses the fundamentals of macrobiotics, macrobiotic foods, and ways to prepare them. Central to the diet are whole grains, soups, vegetables, beans, sea vegetables, and water. Seafood may be eaten very occasionally, but no other animal foods are part of the diet.
Ever since Jay, a homely owner of a local natural foods store, introduced me to macrobiotics, I have been struck by both it’s incredible nutritional compatibility for a cyclist and by the (seemingly) few people that actually eat macrobiotically.
Read more »
Check out these great excerpts from a photo essay entitled, What the World Eats, from the book, Hungry Planet, by photographer (and fellow tribesman?) Peter Menzel.
And if you’re ever confused about what blessing to say when encountering a new food, you can use this new handy gadget, from The Jewish Learning Group!
The next time you pair a satisfying hunk of cheddar cheese with warm, crusty bread and wash it down with a cold micro-brew, give thanks. Thanks to God, yes, but also thanks to micro-organisms. Without these single-celled critters, these foods (as well as yogurt, wine, and chocolate) couldn’t exist.
Fermenting-Connoisseur and author of The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, Sandor Katz, says: “I meet so many people who have a memory of a grandparent who had some sort of an annual fermentation ritual, whether it was making sauerkraut, making wine, making pickles. Really until 50 years ago, 75 years ago, it was really, really common at the household level for people to ferment some of their foods.”
Katz’s new book profiles fermenters, as well as other food activists (who also fall into the category of “little guys” who deserve some thanks),who are sowing the seeds of the movement against the food industry.
Read an interview with Sandor in Grist here.
“Animal Dreams” still ranks up there among my favorite novels, and I have read everything Barbara Kingsolver has written since (I think). So I was very excited to learn that her latest book was about an issue that has become so important to me.
Last night, she was in Berkeley on her book tour, but this reading was a benefit for both the Edible Schoolyard and the Ecology Center’s Farmers Markets. It didn’t get quite the same showing as the Michael Pollan-John Mackey debate, but considering tickets weren’t free, there were several hundred people. The church where I have attended High Holiday services for the past years was pretty close to full.
Kingsolver was accompanied by her husband, Steven L. Hopp, who has contributed to the book, but last night, he worked the computer slide show. Since her book, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” is about her family’s attempt to eat only local food for an entire year, growing and raising most of it themselves on a farm in Virginia, we saw numerous slides of their garden – and what a garden it was.
Read more »
That’s the title of Barbara Kingsolver’s (author of The Poisonwood Bible) new book. Kingsolver and her family left their life of familiarity and convenience, for a year-long journey into the world of local eating.
The NYTimes review writes: ”This meant no snack foods, no processed ones, no cucumbers from warmer parts of the world. “Six eyes, all beloved to me, stared unblinking as I crossed the exotics off our shopping list, one by one,” Ms. Kingsolver writes about the family’s adjustment to these strictures. With the exceptions of olive oil, grains and spices, everything they ate was simple and in season.”
Read more »
Jewish food in America doesn’t have a high gastronomic reputation. Criticized for stringy meat and starchy, schmaltzy sides, the censure is to some degree well earned. The peasant food of Eastern European immigrants reflects the landscape and lives from which it came – the winters were long, the vegetables few, and meat was left on the hob from sundown to sundown.
Yet Jewish cuisine is fixed in the American dietary consciousness via the kosher delis of yore, despite a reputation for gummy brown food. You can find a bagel anywhere in America. (Price Chopper carries bacon and egg bagels.) Corned Beef and Pastrami are in every supermarket in Minnesota. Matzo balls have made their way to Hawaii.
In America’s Great Delis, author Sheryll Bellman provides a timeline for deli culture, starting at 6000 BC when hunter gatherers boil water, which she declares the birthday of borscht. (Borscht Belt humor, thankfully, has not made it too far past the Catskills.) In a book that is lovingly produced with archival photos and the occasional recipe, Bellman pays homage to the transmission of Jewish culture through deli food.
Read more »
Which is better: Organic or locally-grown food? Rice milk or dairy? Tofu or grass-fed beef? Michael Pollan’s not telling.
The author of the New York-Times’ best selling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Pollan is a luminary within an impressive group of writers who examine America’s food industry to find out exactly how our food gets to our plates.
Pollan’s ground-breaking work has profoundly impacted the lives and habits of eaters across the country (mine included), and even inspired beautiful artwork. But despite his great influence, Pollan strongly believes that when it comes to figuring out, “What’s for dinner?” the right answer is ultimately up to each individual consumer.
I spoke with Pollan about the power of making food choices, truly valuing our food, and the importance of holidays, like Pesach, to connect us to the earth, and to each other. Click on “Read More” for the interview. Read more »
There’s a spectacularly successful genre in publishing, the pilgrimage/immersion first person. My favorites, “I was a miserable 20-something and cooked my way through Julia Child” (Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell), and “I was a miserable divorcee and traveled the world.” (Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert) Variations include, reading the encyclopedia or living biblically, and the forthcoming “Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Man Alive” by this gorgeous genius.
I love a good quest. I have cooked entirely round meals. In every category of clothing - shirt, shoes, socks, etc. - I own at least one item that is crossing-guard orange. I think these narratives amount to a healthy kind of OCD. They can give shape to our lives.
In the past week, the NYTimes has treated us to two previews of the next addition to the library: my year of living locally and conscientiously. Sub-headlined “The Year Without Toilet Paper,” the book will soon be known as “No Impact,” from venerable publisher FSG.
Bleccch.
Read more »
In a recent op-ed, Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Journal, read Michael Pollan and calls on Los Angeles
synagogues to join Tuv Ha’Aretz:
Meanwhile, a cutting-edge Jewish organization in New York, Hazon, just announced it would expand its program linking synagogues with local, sustainable farms to five congregations across North America and one in Israel in 2007. Through Hazon’s Tuv Ha’aretz program, synagogue members buy shares in a local farm and receive a box of organic produce each week.
“In some locations,” JTA reports, “subscribers must work several days a year on the farm, ensuring that they have not only a direct connection with the farmer who grows their food but the place where the food grows.”
None of the congregations Hazon has signed on is in Los Angeles. I hope a large, local flagship synagogue (or two, or three) joins soon. [emphasis added]
Moderation, gratitude and awareness. The more we can institutionalize those, the stronger we’ll make our connection to kashrut, and to a better world.
[Jewish Journal]
