Thursday, January 12, 2012
Book Talk: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
I'm happy to present Clover Cohen, a long time student in the Master Class. Cloie is one to watch! Enjoy her insights on memoir. She's a hard working writer who is paying her dues.
I know why Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver enthralls me as a reader.
The topic is food.
Food equaled love in Mom’s family, the Scotch-Irish Rutherfords of Burlingame, California.
There were five course meals, a collection of comfort foods (like macaroni and cheese, pot roast, Jell-O salad with suspended fruit, spinach salad with toasted almonds and mandarin oranges, brussel sprouts with hollandaise sauce), and we we’re all together at the big table in Grandma Gertie’s dining room.
The table could seat 12 or more if the kids sat on stools at the corners. There was loud discussion, arguments, platters passed, trips to the stove to refill the serving dishes, a frenzy of eating that left no leftovers. One or two of us cleared the dishes, breaking off from the group to start washing by hand in the plastic tub in the sink. Grandma had a dishwasher that rolled over and hooked up to the faucet, but I’d never seen it used even once. The rest of us sat the table sit with full bellies, talking but not so loud as before, and then we continued to argue until the volume ramped up again. Kids left the table from boredom, wandered off to watch TV in Grandma’s room, then when it was time, dessert was served and the frenzy of eating started again.
In the family of my parents and sister, food equaled love as well. Having spent my early years on an isolated farm following the "Back to Land" movement in the 1970s, I knew where meat came from, knew how the beans were cultivated in their circular plantings around bamboo teepees to climb and flourish, knew that butter came from milk squeezed out of the cow’s pink udders. Our food was wholesome and fresh. It was just the four of us at the table, if Dad was there, or many more when he brought home a collection of buddies he met at the bar. Our move to the Portland suburbs disconnected us from the earth and from each other. Mom and Dad got divorced. Mom tried to keep us connected to our food source as she could. We picked strawberries every summer in the fields planted high on a ridge above the Sandy River. In every rental, even the apartments and duplexes, Mom had planters of tomato plants or herbs. When there was no outdoor space to carve out, she grew sprouts on the windowsill of the kitchen. 
When Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was released in 2007, it was just in time for Mom’s 58th birthday. At the bookstore, I found the display with stacks of the hardcover books, covered in my favorite pale grass green with the texture of burlap. It was the perfect gift for Mom, a book by one of her favorite authors.
After she read it in just a few days, Mom lent it to me to read. She was flush from the luxurious story, deep in her remembrance of her own time on the farm. I poured through it just as fast and was so sad when I got to the end, that I checked out the audio version from the library to listen on my morning and afternoon commutes with the kids. They groaned and complained when the voice came through the speakers, then quieted to listen to the tales of weeding for days and days, making pizza dough from scratch, lopping off the turkey heads then hanging them to drain their blood. I liked it that they were interested at some level.
The storyline of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle follows perfect the growing season and the way the earth changes each month. It seared in to my brain, which vegetables come in which succession throughout the year. I made up my mind that I would not eat out of season or buy produce that had to be shipped from across the world. 
Woven between the author’s narratives are informational pieces written by her husband and recipes shared by her oldest daughter. The loveliness of the family’s recipes gave me warmth. Their peaceful cooperation and weekly pizza night made me feel safe. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an insider’s view of how food can really equal love.
By: Clover Cohen
Your Turn: Do you have a food/family tale to tell? Leave a comment.
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