“I think we got a rainstorm coming in,” Peggy Paul said, pointing to the ominous band of clouds rolling our way on a blustery, mid-November day. She led me into the shelter of her nearby orchard as icy rain began to tick against the dry leaves and bristled burrs that clung to some 500...
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I never used to save seeds from my gardens. For years, I dutifully pulled the bolted plants, wiping the slate clean for the next season. I’d pour over seed catalogues, snuggled up against my heater with a steaming mug of tea, and make my selections. Plucking varieties trucked from here and there across the...
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I hesitate to invoke the famous Marcel Proust time-travel tale one more time, since uncountable references to that story have ricocheted across food literature like pepper-spraying cops across the Internet. But for those whose reading habits haven’t myopically focused on food and culture, I’ll briefly recap: In the novel Remembrance of Things Past by...
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After decades of food ambivalence, the literary scene has exploded with books about food. Authors have unveiled the politics behind our food. They have penned wide-ranging tutorials from gardening and backyard chickens to root cellar construction and pressing cider. Most importantly, they have inspired and empowered millions of readers to broaden their thinking about...
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For many, it is a dream to live off the land–eat the wild greens that grow in the back yard, fish the local streams for food, hunt if you want to. But this dream is unrealistic, right? There’s no way that a person can get all the food they eat, or even a majority...
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On Aug. 3, federal and county law enforcement agents raided a Venice, Calif., raw-food club, searching for raw milk. The YouTube video of the raid showed officers, with guns drawn, working their way through the facility in what critics called “government-sponsored terrorism” and “an attack on food freedom.” Every few months, it seems, TV news...
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As we roared downstream through the River of No Return Wilderness via jet boat, skipping off rapids and dodging just-submerged boulders, I decided my imaginary movie version of this adventure should be titled Indiana Appleseed in the Canyon of Lost Treasure. Naturally it would be packed with whitewater action, pioneer spirit, hungry black bears...
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