Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

In a message dated 3/9/2008 9:44:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
genegerue AT ruralize.com writes:


> Barbara Kingsolver is a good writer. I've read some of her shorter  
> writings but none of her books.
> 


I most highly recommend "Poisonwood Bible".  But here's the irony.  In that 
novel she points out how a person cannot go into a culture with which they 
are 
not familiar, assume it is lacking or wanting in some way, and improve it.  
Yet ... yet, that's exactly what she herself has done in 'Animal, Vegetable, 
Miracle".  She's not aware of it, but that's exactly what she's done.

> She may not be authentic enough for a James--who is?--but any  
> motivation she and others can create toward food sustainability is  
> worthwhile.

I own that I am on the lunatic fringe of things.  Hey, somebody's got to do 
it.  And of course I agree with you both that the good Kingsolver does with 
this book far, far outweighs any criticisms I have.  But for me it was so 
insightful.  Do you recall reading the part where she describes the people at 
the 
farmer's market but does not mention them by name.  Perhaps this is a 
testimonial 
to her writing skills but Herself and I would look up from this or that 
passage and say "Hey, that's Joe she's talking about, or that's the McRoy 
family!"  
We know them personally.

Now those people ARE local, their families came over on the ark!  But the 
one's she mentions are caught up in the Appalachain Sustainable Development 
which 
by and large supports a gaggle of imported Yankee gentleman farmer esquire 
types.  The direcor, Anthony Flaccavento, is such a Yankee that he pronounces 
the name of his outfint Appalayshun (cringe) rather then the correct 
Apple-at-'chan'.  It is simply a device to siphon off ARC (Appalachian 
Regional 
Commission) money designed for the economic advancement of the (largely 
ficticious) 
poor of the region and put it in the pocket of opportunist Yankees who grow 
designer vegetables to ship north to other Yankees.  And line Anthony's 
pocket.

What impressed me the most is how Barbara Kingslover, here in the cornucopia 
of local foods, was blind to almost all of it.  She apparently never noticed 
the sign in a front yard on Randolph street that says "Cabbages 50 cents/lb" 
and is there all winter and has been for decades.  Second only to my own 
cabbages, I might add.  Or the permanent sign on Weaver Pike that says 
"Turnips - 
Cressy Greens" and sells them almost all year.  No mention of old Mendo who 
parks 
his truck under the underpass near there and sells honey, 'lasses, and 
berries half the year.  Nor did I read about the two restored grist mills 
that sell 
cornmeal grown locally, the Abingdon local who sells eggs directly, the 
various farmers who sell pigs much as we talked aobut in the lamb meat thread 
or my 
buddy Charlie who does the same with beef cattle.  You buy a cut, or a 
quarter 
or a cow, and you show up at the butcher at Rural Retreat (30 miles north of 
Abingdon) and pick up the locally grown meat.

And of course the many local produce stands each run by a farming family.  
They supply bananas, oragnes, and such to be sure, but anything they CAN grow 
and sell directly, the do.  It's cheap and of the very best quality.

So my critique (rather then criticism, perhaps) of the book, is here is 
Kingsolver in the middle of place where you could genuinely eat locally year 
round 
from the most magnificient fare, and yet she's not even aware of 95% of it 
and 
rather gravitates to one of the most smarmy grant-grabbing outfits to ever 
encumber a place.

Both lessons then.  Kingsolver has done much to point the way, AND illustrate 
how, as far as local matters are concerned,  in SW Virginia one should 
consult those hewed from the very rocks rather than imported Yankees.

James (the Unreconstructed)   </HTML>