So often, a podcast interview opens up whole new areas of discovery and here, food and farm books can help provide additional depth. In fact, the last few episodes opened that curiosity for host Janice Person who jumped on a friend’s book recommendation. Now Janice shares recommendations for 10 books in the food and farm space! 

We’ll go one-by-one on the books — links are affiliate links where available:

1. “To Boldly Grow: Finding Joy, Adventure, and Dinner in Your Own Backyard” by Tamar Haspel: This book follows Tamar’s personal story of transitioning from living in New York City to backyard farming with her husband Kevin on Cape Cod. It explores the joys and challenges of growing your own food. It’s an enlightening and fun listen — producing all the food for a year is a challenge to say the least. 

2. “Tomorrow’s Table” by Pam Ronald and Raul Adamchak: Love this common sense approach to food and farming from organic farmers and university professors. They have a depth that is uncommon as well as a shared appreciation for a diverse selection of production practices. You may also enjoy Pam’s TED Talk on engineering our food.

3. “The Wizard and the Prophet” by Charles C. Mann: This book delves into the lives of Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, exploring their differing approaches to food production. It prompts readers to consider both mindsets and highlights that we can find common ground between scientific advancements and environmental preservation. 

4. “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson: This book explores the groundbreaking work of Jennifer Doudna and the revolutionary gene-editing tool CRISPR. It delves into the ethical implications of this technology and its potential impact on the future of humanity. Love that the is a teen version now too because this is important science to understand. 

5. “The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World” by Amanda Little: This book looks into the future of our food system in the face of growing population, climate change, and technological advancements. It offers insights and potential solutions for feeding the world sustainably. Lots to think about. 

6. “The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats” by Daniel Stone: This book tells the captivating story of David Fairchild, a botanist who traveled the world to discover new and exotic crops, ultimately transforming American cuisine. I love hearing how various foods came to be grown here. 

7. “Cuisine & Empire: Cooking in World History” by Rachel Laudan: This book explores the historical relationship between food, culture, and empire. It provides a rich understanding of how culinary practices have shaped societies throughout history.

8. Edna Lewis’ cookbooks: “The Taste of Country Cooking” and “In Pursuit of Flavor”: These cookbooks by celebrated chef Edna Lewis emphasize seasonality and the use of fresh ingredients from your garden. They invite readers to think more deeply about flavors and cooking with the bounty of each season.

9. “The Complete Food & Nutrition Guide” by Roberta Larson Duyff: Published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, this comprehensive guide covers various aspects of food and nutrition. It provides practical information and guidance on managing health concerns, such as food allergies, heart disease, and diabetes.

10. “We Are Each Other’s Harvest” by Natalie Baszile: This bookvfeatures interviews conducted by Natalie Baszile with African American farmers from the South as well as some materials by other writers. It offers a unique perspective and explores the experiences and challenges faced by these farmers. I know several farmers featured in it (including Kamal Bell who’s been on the podcast) and wrote a review of it if you want more info. 

Castmagic is the AI tool (link to Castmagic & give me a referral fee that doesn’t impact your cost) that helps with some of the content shared here and on social channels. It helps me do more faster since I don’t stare at a blank screen. 

The post Cultivating Curiosity: Food and Farm Books Janice Recommends appeared first on Grounded by the Farm.

Last spring I bought audio & hardbound copies of a book about black farmers in the presale…. I got my copies as the book arrived at the first book stores! This book has now become a go to for me in recommending materials, but I had missed sharing it here. Knowing how many of us really seek to learn more about black history, especially during the month of February, I wanted to come back to the review it here.

Please note:  This post includes links to purchase the book on Amazon, which may result in income for the website. 

The book I’m talking about is We Are Each Other’s Harvest by Natalie Baszile. I took both audio & hard bound with me on a long road trip. Once I had “read” it, I posted a review on Amazon since many friends who have written books tell me reviews help people make purchases.

Few Black Farmers Remain

I thought I got it. As someone who has worked in agriculture for decades, I know it is too rare for people of color to be at the various conferences & events for farming. I’ve been lucky enough to get to know several black farmers though over the years, and I have learned pieces of their family’s histories and challenges during various visits.

I have watched documentaries and followed lawsuits and knew families who have been afraid of their land being stolen like their neighbors experienced. I knew black farmers faced obstacles in trying to secure loans, purchase land or equipment, get fair prices, etc. As I started my consulting business, I sought out connections with black farmers and volunteered with the National Black Growers Council (NBGC). You’ve heard interviews with some of them here, I especially think of Lloyd Johnson who shared his family’s history with me at the desert table one night and later shared his history on the podcast. I even met the author Natalie Baszile at the NBGC annual meeting.

And yet, I never had the full picture of what has happened over the years.

Researching a Book About Black Farmers

I found Baszile through the novel Queen Sugar and the NBGC and she speaks openly about her father’s desire to leave Louisiana and the racism faced there. Natalie returned to those family roots and found her novel there. She also met farmers who would inform this book. To see her create a world of sugarcane was impressive as sugarcane farmers see their reality in her work of fiction. So to see her dive head first into non-fiction, I anticipated good work, but it’s great.

Baszile has done a depth of research that astounds me. She has taken time to get to know farmers personally. She was a trusted ear for them to talk to and she had done the research with public records to put the anecdotes of individual farmers in context.

The combination of historical research and individual family’s stories makes the book incredibly powerful and I have to say, it hit so hard that I was compelled to read it in a single week, though I occasionally had to step away because the shameful reality that America has still not treated these black farm families equally is a hard reality to sit with. But I couldn’t stay away long as I wondered what came next.

She interviewed people I consider friends and yet I didn’t always know some of the trials their families had faced. Like many of us, hard history isn’t a regular when having small talk or whatever.

The only criticism I have was with the audiobook version, it is a bit harder to understand the shift in gears between chapters since there are a few different types — profiles of farms, historical perspective, essay contributors, etc. The interview parts with farmers felt best understood in print for me when I can picture the farmers and have those deeper voices and the various Southern dialects in my head rather than hearing the reading. Picking up the printed one, the difference seems much clearer.

It Leaves You Thinking A Lot

While I often think so many farmers would like to say they never benefited at the cost of black farmers in their area, it is abundantly clear many have. And because the system perpetuated it, Baszile and some of the other writers she includes in the book speak to that and the systemic issues and some of the options to chart the path forward.

She brought to me a new understanding of the importance of anti-racism work in the food & agriculture space. Thanks Natalie Baszile for writing the book I needed to read and look at. More of us need to grapple with the uncomfortable reality that is detailed in great depth here.

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