I wasn't sure what to make of this book at first. I thought maybe that it might be trying to convert me to vegetarianism (mission: unaccomplished) or maybe convert me to granola eating Whole Foods loving hipsterism (mission: also unaccomplished) but I was wrong on both counts. What this book does try to do is try to answer the simplest of questions: what do you want for dinner? (And more to the point: where does it come from?)
The author, Michael Pollan breaks this down quite nicely. First, he decides to break down the big industrial food chain- he looks at corn, chronicling the rise of corn and how it came to dominate the agricultural industry and just how much corn is in everything we eat these days. Then, he takes it a step further: he looks at how big meat works- following a calf from it's ranch in South Dakota to the feedlot where it eventually meets its end. He looks at the effect of corn on cattle and how that overturns most of the cow's natural instinct- to eat grass- in favor of a streamlined, industrial, capitalist model of agriculture. Which is having detrimental effects on our environment, our health and our world as a whole.
There has to be, Pollan decides, a better way: and so he turns and plunges into the world of Big Organic food, which might well have some health benefits but has embraced- or been coopted by the capitalist-industrial model of food that dominates the marketplace today. He traces the rise of the organic food movement and it's explosion in recent years, but in the end, decides that while it's marginally better- there has to be still another, better way to fix this endless confusion about the state of our food.
Which he finds down in Virginia on a farm owned by a guy named Joel Salatin: this, to me, is where the book really gets interesting. Salatin runs a pastoral farm. Everything is done on a very small, local scale. Pollan is actually forced to go to Salatin's farm after he refuses to send Pollan some of his pastorally raised meat and what Pollan learns has some potentially fascinating implications. Salatin operates on a local level keeping every aspect of his farm in a kind of symbiosis that works extremely well for him. Cows grave one area first, followed by chickens, followed by rabbits, followed by- and so on and so forth. The pattern benefits all involved produce almost an ecosystem- each element working in concert with the other to grow food, raise animals and produce a healthy, vibrant farm. (Salatin even thinks his grass is important.)
After this trip through the various food chains out there, Pollan decides that the real challenge is going to be making what he calls the perfect meal: consisting of everything that he grew, gathered or hunted himself- which is a lot harder than people might think. He had an extensive garden, so some herbs helped him out there. He managed to get some yeast straight out of the air that worked for bread. His expedition for salt- not so much- and his mushroom hunting produced initially mixed results before hitting the morel-load, so to speak. He foraged for bing cherries in his neighborhood and created the bulk of his meal with no problem. The real hook for Pollan comes when he wrestles with hunting.
Pollan, needless to say, is not a hunter. He killed a chicken on Salatin's farm because he thought he should and because he wanted to see if he could do it- which is the part of the book that really tries to make the hard sell on the ethics of eating meat. It had me thinking hard about it for a little bit, but ultimately it fell short. Biologically, we're omnivores, so we eat meat. The question of what kind of meat we should eat, however proved to be a far more powerful question to me than whether or not we should eat meat to begin with. Grass fed, ethical meat-- when they say it tastes better, kids- they're not lying to you, they really mean it! But in the end, Pollan decides to saddle up and go get a California Wild Boar which serves as the centerpiece to his meal.
It's a neat concept- but unfortunately one that's probably totally untenable on a day to day basis.
This was a fascinating book but not for the reasons you might think. Yes, it gave me a bad case of foodie fever and had me watching Restaurant: Impossible, Kitchen Nightmares and Top Chef and planning my future restaurant/bar/hip neighborhood pub and yes it did prompt me to decide to whenever I can afford grass fed beef, I'll get it over anything else. And had me longing for spring so I could plant my garden all over again.
But what I found most fascinating were the implications for models of post-industrial capitalism, should any emerge in the near future. Consider Salatin's farm: it's very, very locally based and relies on a small scale population of consumers to make it's profits. The idea of pastorally raised meat on such a local scale would never survive if the internet didn't bring such a massive quantity of information directly to consumers. It's kind of a strech to imagine it now, but the model that Salatin is developing essentially uses a global platform to project a product locally. It's kind of strange to imagine, but you could posit a future where people market products from their homes/small businesses to people across the world and shop for food anywhere from big box industrial food stores to small, local slow food farms and farmer's markets.
Like I said: it's a stretch to really imagine it, but if you read carefully there are some interesting threads that you could use to posit what a post-industrial capitalism might look like. Which, at the very least, you have to admit is an interesting thing to start thinking about, since whether we like it or not, it's coming.
Overall: Interesting book. If the goal was to make me more food-aware, then mission very well accomplished. Didn't quite manage to convert me to vegetarianism, but had some thought provoking thoughts on that subject. (Plus, I don't think that was the point Pollan was trying to make.) And there are interesting trends emerging in the food world that are going to be worth keeping an eye on. Fascinating, educational, wonderful and thought-provoking. Well worth my time- and certainly worth yours.
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