What We Read

This month, Vancouver’s Circle of Literary Judgement read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (with Steven L. HoppKingsolver) and Camille Kingsolver. The story – a non-fiction narrative that follows the path of the Vegetannual through the seasons – chronicles The Kingolver Clan’s locavore experiment, which saw the family live from the local culinary bounty produced by their multi-acre farm (and revenue generated by two decades of best-selling novels) in Virginia. Barbara Kingsolver (BK herein) provides the – ahem – meat of the story, revealing her passion for food, her instructive advice on how to grow/raise food, and her commitment to changing the way people (specifically educated women who are over 45, have healthy disposable income, and who probably live in a rural community) think about food and where it somes from. BK’s stories of asparagus, tomatoes and turkeys are nicely supplemented by info-boxes about sustainable local food procuring from Steven Hopp and recipes from Camille Kingsolver (CK herein).

What We Did

With food at the centre of the book we made food the centre of book club! An hommage to Iron Chef was our activity of choice. Team Kitchen took on Team BBQ in a battle to build creative, delicious, local, fair, and organic dishes that reflected key themes from the book. The cooking took about 90 minutes and the final products were absolutely exceptional.

In terms of ingredients, I provided some basics (potatoes, tomatoes, herbs and spices, flour, yeast, water, milk, etc.) and then each team had to select twenty dollars worth of items from another list of options (eggs, fruit, alcohol, cheese, fish, etc.). The secret ingredients were chicken and rabbit (from my parents’ home in Merville on Vancouver Island). But enough writing, here are some photos that tell the tale:

This is the menu for Team Kitchen - written on Stew's back, for some reason...

In the end, Team Kitchen edged Team BBQ, as their pizza, rabbit stew (made by a guy named Stew) and sangria were as delicious as they were creatively presented. When dinner wrapped up, though, we sat at a table of winners; very full and satisfied culinary winners.

What We Thought

This was interesting. The table agreed that food is important and that it will become more important – and more politicized and businessified – in the future. That was about all we agreed on. One person had no time for the message or the book’s style, citing the recipes as the only piece of value in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – this person scoffed at any local food projects, too, stating that the economics of oil would eventually make our world smaller simply because of the cost and that BK got nowhere near the hardship of farming. If it was so easy, everyone would do it. Another person has actively changed her shopping habits based on BK’s insistence on eating seasonally. And many of us thought that the message was old news. Not many of us cared for BK, CK or Steve’s style, either; however, we agreed that our table was jealous that they got to the project before we did and that people don’t like our writing as much as they like the narratory trinity from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Another interesting part of the discussion came out of our material conditions and our upbringings. I am the only member of our nine-person book club who grew up in a rural community. And my parents refer to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as “the bible” for locavores everywhere. I was surprised and impressed by how passionate and opinionated a book about food – and an activity with very strict financial and menu parameters – made everyone. People chided my choice of book, complained about the Kingsolver Clan’s unabashed pretentiousness, asked to use out-of-season and non-local ingredients, and three people repeatedly warned me that we wouldn’t have enough food. Needless to say, last weekend’s book club experience was a wonderful case study of urban local food experimentation. Thanks for the inspiration, Barbara, Steven and Camille, and for the deliciously lively dinner, members of the CLJ community!