Fields of Plenty

Description

A thoughtful memoir of farmer and educator Michael Ableman as he journeys across the country with his son to seek out passionate farmers and food artisans. His odyssey leads him to vegetable farmers, orchardists, cheese makers, grain growers and people who raise animals who are trying to answer questions of sustenance both philosophically and in practice. From a luscious fruit farm in California to an urban farm in Chicago to the site of his family dairy farm in Delaware, illustrated with full-colour photographs and including recipes, this beautifully layered memoir both reveals the personal stories of farming as well as illuminating the context and meaning of food in our culture today.

Michael Ableman lives and farms on an island in British Columbia with his wife and two sons. He has been featured in National Geographic and received numerous awards. Ableman has also lectured at the International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference.

"America has undeniably become a fast-food nation, with the bulk of our meals coming from cans, freezers or drive-thru windows. In the newest offering from Ableman, he promises that it doesn't have to be this way, delightfully chronicling his quest to experience productive, imaginative, organic American farms. For three months, as his own harvest was coming to fruition on his farm in British Columbia, the author and his son set off in a VW van on a 12,000 mile journey to farms across the country. The result is an engaging hybrid of travelogue, cookbook and discourse on the new American agrarian movement. Ableman's findings are far more diverse than the bucolic cornfields that might come to mind when thinking about American agriculture. From the poblano chilies that rise out of the New Mexican desert to an urban oasis of tomato plants bordering on Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project to greenhouses brimming with lettuces along the rocky coastlines of Maine, the farms that he visits paint a vibrant portrait of the American landscape. His prose is as ripe as the summer tomatoes he describes, and the recipes that accompany each chapter are a tempting combination of regional favorites and new flavors. Above all else, Ableman presents an appealing and optimistic testament to the fact that fresh, organic eating is still very much alive in America." "Kirkus Review"