Review of
Nabhan, Gary Paul. Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
Soul Food
Soul Food
by Stacie M. Brady
Gary Nabhan’s book Coming Home to Eat challenges many assumptions Americans have about their eating habits, nutrition, and food supply. Nabhan conducted a unique eighteen-month study on the plausibility of eating only foods found locally, the ramifications of eating in such a way, and the consequences of not. During this time, he lived off the land, seeking out indigenous foods, growing his own, and experimenting with the dietary choices of local Indian cultures. This book documents his experience. Although Nabhan allowed for a small percentage of his food intake to be regular American fare, he used that allowance to research what is nutritious as opposed to what is genetically-engineered, chemically-altered, nutriceutically-enhanced, pesticide-ridden, deceptive, shipped long distances, and dangerous in the food offered in grocery stores today. He presents his own story as one man defying the system, modern culture, and even his own family in order to reveal the evils and consequences of the modern American diet and the beauties and benefits of a local diet.
This book serves as a warning to the United States. Native ecosystems are vanishing and being replaced by ubiquitous, one-crop cultivated fields, and natural elements in the human diet are being replaced by processed food that is not beneficial or nutritious. Nabhan capture
s a sense of what is being lost from past diets by endeavoring “…to regain a sense of the foragers’ and farmers’ lives, trying to connect with the land through the kind of pursuits that had been obliterated over the lifespan of…my mother…[and] do something more than merely chronicle the decline of foraging and farming traditions; I wanted to ensure their persistence and revitalization” (104). He accomplishes this task by presenting to his readers the full gamut of the human footprint on the environment and the consequences of such demands on local flora and fauna as a result of the demands of feeding a population dependent upon engineered and manufactured food because, in the words of the geographer Pierce Lewis, “Our human landscape is our unwitting autobiography,” and the human landscape Nabhan sees is not a pretty story (Lewis 12). He says he “…want[s] fully to bear the brunt of what my own eating of the living world entails,” and his concern is for the diversity of foods and flavors, which is being seriously compromised.
s a sense of what is being lost from past diets by endeavoring “…to regain a sense of the foragers’ and farmers’ lives, trying to connect with the land through the kind of pursuits that had been obliterated over the lifespan of…my mother…[and] do something more than merely chronicle the decline of foraging and farming traditions; I wanted to ensure their persistence and revitalization” (104). He accomplishes this task by presenting to his readers the full gamut of the human footprint on the environment and the consequences of such demands on local flora and fauna as a result of the demands of feeding a population dependent upon engineered and manufactured food because, in the words of the geographer Pierce Lewis, “Our human landscape is our unwitting autobiography,” and the human landscape Nabhan sees is not a pretty story (Lewis 12). He says he “…want[s] fully to bear the brunt of what my own eating of the living world entails,” and his concern is for the diversity of foods and flavors, which is being seriously compromised. At the same time as Nabhan laments the destruction to the environment, he exhibits an alternative way of living, a solution to the problem: to eat locally. Nabhan, in his rare mix of optimism and alarm, expects change to be possible even in the midst of apparent doom, and that the food system in America “…could still be repaired and stitched together once more” (237). This book displays his answer as he lives a lifestyle few Americans can even fath
om, hunting and foraging and raising and growing his own food to prove it can be accomplished. For Nabhan, the current American diet abandons the variety of flavors possible in a more diverse diet, and he desires Americans rediscover that “…life tastes good” (83). He admits this would require a massive change in the thinking of nearly all Americans, but his hope is for small change to bring important repercussions, demonstrated, for instance, when he informs his reader that the baby food industry finally determined to stop using potentially unsafe engineered corn: “A change had begun, and it was rippling out over the cornfields of this continent, reshaping everything it its wake” (187). He comes to the conclusion that food must be regarded in a revolutionary, yet old-fashioned way when he says, “…we need collectively to value and celebrate the food that came out of our own habitats in ways that safeguard those habitats” (225). To save the environment, to preserve diminishing species, and to eat more healthfully, Nabhan’s solution is to make local food more extraordinary and special in Americans’ perceptions.
om, hunting and foraging and raising and growing his own food to prove it can be accomplished. For Nabhan, the current American diet abandons the variety of flavors possible in a more diverse diet, and he desires Americans rediscover that “…life tastes good” (83). He admits this would require a massive change in the thinking of nearly all Americans, but his hope is for small change to bring important repercussions, demonstrated, for instance, when he informs his reader that the baby food industry finally determined to stop using potentially unsafe engineered corn: “A change had begun, and it was rippling out over the cornfields of this continent, reshaping everything it its wake” (187). He comes to the conclusion that food must be regarded in a revolutionary, yet old-fashioned way when he says, “…we need collectively to value and celebrate the food that came out of our own habitats in ways that safeguard those habitats” (225). To save the environment, to preserve diminishing species, and to eat more healthfully, Nabhan’s solution is to make local food more extraordinary and special in Americans’ perceptions. In this way, food consumption is more than filling the gut, and food provision is more than making life easier. Eating is a part of who people are, and it ultimately affects the spirit. He argues, “Native foods are worth eating [not] only for their value in reducing blood sugar and cholesterol levels…But they are also good for the land and good for our souls” (303). He repeatedly becomes philosophical, romanticizing the flavors that pass over his tongue and the attendant emotions. He even calls local food gathering “…an elixir for the soul, this drinking in of forest and marshland. It is a cure in and of itself, over and above the nutritional or pharmacological value of the plants” (243). Nabhan indirectly
begs his readers in his non-threatening, story-like manner to seek more from their food, to hold on to what is valuable, and to find beauty and flavor all around because, based on his own experience, “The foods and wine had blessed us, not the other way around” (252).
begs his readers in his non-threatening, story-like manner to seek more from their food, to hold on to what is valuable, and to find beauty and flavor all around because, based on his own experience, “The foods and wine had blessed us, not the other way around” (252).References
Lewis, Pierce F. “Axioms for Reading the Landscape.” The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Nabhan, Gary Paul. Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
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