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The Slow Food USA Blog
A Slow Food Reading List
Posted on Mon, March 09, 2009 by Jerusha Klemperer
21 Comments | Categories: Books, Farms and Farming, Policy,
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From time to time we get requests from people for a Slow Food reading list. In the days before the blog, there was the Slow Food Forum, and on it lived an evolving document to this effect. We’ve decided to compile a new list by asking some of our staff, Board of Directors, Advisory Board and friends: what inspired you to get involved in sustainable food? What inspires you still. Below are some of their answers.
Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA
An Agricultural Testament, by Sir Albert Howard
The New Organic Grower, by Eliot Coleman
Malabar Farm and Pleasant Valley, by Louis Bromfield
Epitaph for a Peach(and others), by David Mas Masumoto
Brian Halweil, SFUSA Advisory Board member, Publisher of Edible Manhattan, Edible East End, and Edible Brooklyn, and author of
Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global SupermarketThe Unsettling of America
, by Wendell Berry
Small is Beautiful, by EF Schumacher
Ecological Literacy, by David Orr
“I read all of these during my junior and senior years of college when I first realized I wanted to learn about how food was raised and how it could be raised differently. They all blew my mind, opened me up to the connections between food and the environment and between food and politics and gave me solid grounding for discussing these issues, even though all the books are a decade or more old.”
Leigh Belanger, food writer and Program and Communications Manager for Chefs Collaborative
Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
The Columbian Exchange, by Alfred Crosby
The French Laundry Cookbook, by Thomas Keller
Erika Lesser, Executive Director of Slow Food USA
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser
This Organic Life, by Joan Dye Gussow
Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki
Professor Lani Raider, Gastronomy Professor at Culinary Institute of America and Chapter leader of SF Hudson Valley
The End of Food,by Paul Roberts
Stuffed and Starved, by Raj Patel
Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Food, by Gary Paul Nabhan
Chef Kurt Michael Friese, SFUSA Board Member, and author of
A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland
The Collected Works of MFK Fisher
Anything by Calvin Trillin
“Brigade de Cuisine” from the collection
by John McPhee
The SFUSA staff also recommends:
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, by Marion Nestle
The Pleasures of Slow Food, by Corby Kummer
Member Comments
From Christie on Tue, March 10, 2009
Despite the abrasive and seemingly out of place title, Skinny Bitch is the book that had the biggest influence on my health and eating habits.
From Paul Kobulnicky on Tue, March 10, 2009
Maybe it is our age (60’s) and thus the time at which we became aware but there are three authors that really influenced the approach that my wife and I take to food and life in general. They are:
John Seymour as exemplified in The complete Book of Self-sufficiency.
Gene Logsdon as exemplified in Two Acre Eden
and, Carla Emery (and her family, friends and neighbors) who produced The Encyclopedia of Country Living.
From Donald L. Gibbon on Sun, March 15, 2009
Harold Magee’s “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen,” had a huge influence on my enjoyment of the details of food. I’ll certainly second Brian Halwell’s recommendation of “Small is Beautiful” and its general approach to life… the chapter on Bhuddist Economics is transformative. And then, if you want to have the essence of appreciation of life delivered to you in a delightful package, try Robert Fulghum’s most recent, “What on Earth Have I Done?”
Donald L. Gibbon
From Food Quotes on Thu, March 26, 2009
I just bought Skinny Bitch book a few days ago and have only just started reading it, I find that the ?you fool? and ?stupid moron? bits are added on to the end of sentences just to keep up with their title & hype. None of the information is particularly new.
Apart from that, when I bought it, the guy in the bookstore grimaced (half jokingly) and offered to put the book in a brown paper bag for me. I did take him up on his offer.
From Alferd on Thu, March 26, 2009
I?m sure the book will be a wake-up call for some, but the thing is that the extremely negative tone will put a LOT of people off. The overall message is good, but they?re not conveying it very effectively. It just seems like they didn?t really think it through & decided to go with ?shock? tactics. Of course, people respond to different types of stimulus, but there are a large amount of people who don?t need (or want) to be belittled or ridiculed to jump into action ? & they?re going to miss all of those people.
Regards,
Food Quotes
From Jessica on Mon, April 26, 2010
Diet for a New America by John Robbins
From Amy Peters on Mon, April 26, 2010
Omnivore’s Dilemma - Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Re: Skinny Bitch: target audience: twenty-something girls?
From paula oandasan on Mon, April 26, 2010
“There’s not a healthy recipe in this whole damn book, a guide to southern comfort food”. great recipes and stories.good old southern food mixed with author’s favorite others. will make you want to cook. available on amazon.com
From raya King on Mon, April 26, 2010
The best most informative and educational cookbook ever, Nourising Traditions by Sally Fallon.
From Gwendolen Groocock on Mon, April 26, 2010
“Diet for a Small Planet” and “Laurel’s Kitchen.” Really enjoyed these classics - found original copies at a yard sale! - but sad to see that the basic message is the same as AVM, Omnivore’s Dilemma and other books that are popular now, because relatively little progress has been made. Indeed, the really big problems like childhood obesity, diet and lifestyle-related disease, the power of Big Ag and monoculture farming, and the prevalence of cheap, non-nourishing food in our nation’s diet seem to be worse.
From Suzanne on Mon, April 26, 2010
Everything by Joel Salatin, especially
You Can Farm,
Everything I want to do is Illegal, and
Family Friendly Farming
From landsnark on Mon, April 26, 2010
The More-With-Less Cookbook, Doris Janzen Longacre. Simple beautiful food with suggestions for leftovers as well (“Gathering Up the Fragments”).
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet, Smith & MacKinnon (even if you read AVM!)
From Karan on Mon, April 26, 2010
I’ve suffered from Chronic Yeast since I blew up my immune system at age 16 with long term concurrent use of birth control (family doctor) and tetracycline (dermatologist). In my late 20’s I stumbled upon The Yeast Connection and discovered that the root cause of a long laundry list of physical maladies that had been plaguing me for years was yeast. The Yeast Connection’s “Rainbow Diet” was the beginning, loads of other whole food cookbooks followed; but lately there have been movies like Food, Inc. and books like Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals that have caused a major sea change in our household. And despite the fact that I already knew the answer, Hank Cardello’s Stuffed: an insider’s look at who’s (really) making america fat was an enlightening read.
From Luke on Mon, April 26, 2010
For me, it has definitely been some of Michael Pollan’s books:
“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”
“In Defense of Food”
“Food Rules”
and Barbara Kingsolver’s
“Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”.
From Kalin on Mon, April 26, 2010
“Diet for a DEAD Planet” - Christopher Cook
“You Are What You Eat” - Dr. Gillian McKeith
“The China Study” - Dr. Collin Campbell
From Lorraine Allen on Mon, April 26, 2010
I would add to the great books already mentioned, Vandana Shiva’s writings, such as:
“Soil, Not Oil”
“Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply”
Add the book by the Vancouver couple determined to eat only locally for a year: “Plenty” by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon.
Also Mark Bittman’s “Food Matters”.
From AMI on Mon, April 26, 2010
I highly recommend reading Weston Price’s original work “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” It’s fascinating to delve into the diets of traditional cultures and get a bit of a first-hand glimpse of their lives. While Nourishing Traditions and all of the books that follow from Price’s work are great, there is nothing quite like reading information for yourself, and drawing your own conclusions.
From Jeff Dycus on Tue, April 27, 2010
Most of my favorites have been mentioned. One that hasn’t is Farmers of Forty Centuries by F H King. The 1911 edition is now in the public domain and freely available at
From Bruce on Tue, April 27, 2010
After a family health issue, my wife and I read The China Study. By T. Colin Campbell Became Vegans immediately and bought Alicia Silverstone, The Kind Diet. Haven’t felt better.
From Jaq on Tue, April 27, 2010
If you liked Pollan’s “In Defense of Food,” try Nina Planck’s “Real Food.:
From Mark B on Thu, May 06, 2010
For me it was Animal, Vegatable, Miracle. A truly beautiful book that didn’t ram anything (excuse the pun) down my throat. Barbara Kingsolver is awesome.
I’ve read Mike Pollans books since & he is wonderful also. So full of wisdom and reasoned thought.
Moving on to Joel Salatin now. Much prefer the books with positive messages.
