best books

Posted by Heather Wood on April 28, 2008 at 12:04pm in KGI member and supporter feedback

I've been thinking recently about how important books ahve been in my evolution as a gardener-cook, and it made me wonder what books have influenced other KGIers. For me, a few in particular come to mind, two very old and one more recent. Back in my early twenties, when I was running a sheep farm and vegetable garden and wishing ugently that I had time for ornamental gardening, I read a book called Green Thoughts, by Eleanor Perenai. In an elegant and thoughtful fashion it led me right back to vegetable gardening and started me on the ornamental-vegetable style that now fills my front yard. It also introduced me to Thalassa Cruso's Making Vegetables Grow. About twenty years later, reading The Omnivore's Dilemma made me think more seriously about the state of commercial agriculture and the need to control some of my own food supply. Ironically, I think it was far more effective in this regard than Pollan's more recent and more clearly home-garden-oriented book, In Defense of Food, which in my opinion just isn't as good a book.
Now, how about you? What books have shaped your gardening, either theoretically or practically? I don't think any category of book is excluded, since cookbooks and novels have had profound effects on many peoples' thinking about gardening and food.

Tags: books, cooking, food, gardening

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Permalink Reply by John Walker on April 28, 2008 at 2:03pm: Richard Manning 'Against the Grain' and 'Food's Frontier "
Mark Winne 'Closing the food Gap'
Raj Patel "Stuffed and Starved'
Anything by Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon
HC Flores 'Foods not Lawns'
From the farm to the table : what all Americans need to know about agriculture / Gary Holthaus.
Moveable feasts : from ancient Rome to the 21st century, the incredible journeys of the food we eat / Sarah Murray.
Moveable feasts : the history, science, and lore of food / Gregory McNamee.
Near a thousand tables : a history of food / Felipe Fernández-Armesto.
A history of food / by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat ; translated from the French by Anthea Bell.
What we eat/ Nina Planck
Building communities from the inside out : a path toward finding and mobilizing a community's assets / John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight
Careless Society/ John L. McKnight
Complete Agrarian Reader; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Heather Wood on April 28, 2008 at 2:39pm: I'm glad you brought up Wendell Berry, who has probably done more than any other one writer to portray the sheer beauty of responsible farming. If you had to pick one book off your list to recommend to people interested in social/political aspects of food and agriculture, which one would you pick and why?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Walker on April 28, 2008 at 2:53pm: One book? You're so cruel ;)
For people living in America, I would say Mark Winne's book, For everyone else, Raj Patel's book.
The only reason I did not suggest Patel's book is that Mark Winne's deals with his 35 year involvement in the system and is very apropos to the US. Of course the global scope of Stuffed and Starved would be a good eye opener for the US (it was an eye opener for me as a Brit !!!!!)
From a historical note I would go for Fernandez-Armesto rather than the 2 movable feasts books.
For a complete " Oh merde' moment (Roger, Ian, am I allowed to say that?) Careless Society is a gobsmacker. John McKnight really nails the institution of institutions.
Hope this clarifies things. I will go through my bookshelves and see what else leaps out at me (cat notwithstanding).
pax
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Permalink Reply by Heather Wood on April 28, 2008 at 7:41pm: Thanks. My question was selfish in origin; there are a lot of books on your list that I haven't read, but I have to do so much reading professionally that I know I'll never have time to make it all the way through your list. This helps me know where to start. Then, someday when I retire, I can read everything else ;-).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Walker on April 29, 2008 at 11:03am: No problem.
I guess your priority will be influenced by how active you want to be in local food initiatives.
If you are, then start with Mark Winne
If you want a great read about food history go with Fernandez-Armesto.
If you want to grow food in ann interesting way read HC Flores.
keep Wendell for when you retire.....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Penelope on April 28, 2008 at 4:00pm: I was heavily influenced by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOGS published in the dark ages of the 1970s, and the "old" ORGANIC GARDENING book by Rodale Press. ONE STRAW REVOLUTION by Fukoka??? and books like THE ALICE B. TOKLAS COOKBOOK which describes Gertrude and Alice's time in the French countryside gardening for survival while the Germans approach during WWII, Everything by California food writer MFK Fisher (with whom I corresponded for a few years before she died in the early 1990s), Peter Mayle's Provence adventures.

Pictures in Mother Earth News of hippies digging in the dirt and harvesting pole beans.

I come by gardening obliquely -- from a lifestyle perspective, peas fresh out of their skins, sipping glasses of the season's new Sauternes, conversation with good friends around a table in a flower garden --; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Heather Wood on April 29, 2008 at 6:49pm: I can't imagine a nicer way to come to grdening. In with all the political and social thinking, there has to be a place for the sheer sensual pleasures of gardening.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ian on April 29, 2008 at 11:06am: I have just one book to recommend: In the French Kitchen Garden by Georgeanne Brennan.
I have always had a love of good food but until recently was not particularly interested in producing it.

This book, which I received as a present at the end of last year, is the sole reason I am now on here, I am now writing my own blog and more importantly I am now trying to grow a few vegetables on a tiny patch in South West France

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Permalink Reply by John Walker on April 29, 2008 at 11:56am: Dear Ian,
Its actually in our local library!!!!! I have reserved it.
Thanks
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Permalink Reply by Penelope on April 29, 2008 at 11:58am: Ian, I have that book too. It's great. It's the first time I read about curing olives. I wish I lived in an olive climate.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sugar's Ma on April 29, 2008 at 3:13pm: I loved Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a good spring read that really gets you in the mood to go out and dig.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ilex on April 29, 2008 at 5:28pm: -Michael Pollan's books have been a great inspiration to me. I have to say that I especially loved "In Defense of Food", because it is so accessible. I've recommended it to all my non-gardener/ non-foodie friends, and for many it has further piqued their curiosity about gardening- which only made me love the book more.

-"The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms", by Amy Stewart. I read it last year, and It was the first time in a while I was moved to take notes as I read. I still check back with it, probably weekly; there is, sadly, a dearth of writing about worms...

-"Preserving Food" by the gardeners and farmers of Terre Vivante. While it's really a recipe/ how-to book of various methods of food preservation, It opened up a whole new world to me.; ▶ Reply to This