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One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
Harmony
May 2007
On Sale: April 24, 2007
272 pages
ISBN: 030734732X
EAN: 9780307347329
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Like many great adventures, the 100-mile diet began with a
memorable feast. Stranded in their off-the-grid summer
cottage in the Canadian wilderness with unexpected guests,
Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon turned to the land around
them. They caught a trout, picked mushrooms, and mulled
apples from an abandoned orchard with rose hips in wine. The
meal was truly satisfying; every ingredient had a story, a
direct line they could trace from the soil to their forks.
The experience raised a question: Was it possible to eat
this way in their everyday lives? Back in the city, they began to research the origins of the
items that stocked the shelves of their local supermarket.
They were shocked to discover that a typical ingredient in a
North American meal travels roughly the distance between
Boulder, Colorado, and New York City before it reaches the
plate. Like so many people, Smith and MacKinnon were trying
to live more lightly on the planet; meanwhile, their “SUV
diet” was producing greenhouse gases and smog at an
unparalleled rate. So they decided on an experiment: For one
year they would eat only food produced within 100 miles of
their Vancouver home. It wouldn’t be easy. Stepping outside the industrial food
system, Smith and MacKinnon found themselves relying on
World War II–era cookbooks and maverick farmers who refused
to play by the rules of a global economy. What began as a
struggle slowly transformed into one of the deepest
pleasures of their lives. For the first time they felt
connected to the people and the places that sustain them. For Smith and MacKinnon, the 100-mile diet became a journey
whose destination was, simply, home. From the satisfaction
of pulling their own crop of garlic out of the earth to
pitched battles over canning tomatoes, Plenty is about
eating locally and thinking globally. The authors’ food-focused experiment questions
globalization, monoculture, the oil economy, environmental
collapse, and the tattering threads of community.
Thought-provoking and inspiring, Plenty offers more than a
way of eating. In the end, it’s a new way of looking at the
world.
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