Barbara Kingsolver’s memoir Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life chronicles her family’s story of moving from New Mexico to the southern Appalachians. In their new Virginia home they learn to live on the foods they grow and raise themselves. For one year, Kingsolver along with her husband and two daughters, take on the challenge of locavore living. The story demonstrates the hardships and joys that arise when growing, nurturing, slaughtering, cooking, and eating your own food. This traditional and tight-knit relationship with food is what people experienced for centuries before food industrialists began separating consumers from the source of their nourishment. Kingsolver and her family rediscover the power that food possesses to create connection, nourishment, and growth within a family and community.
While preparing a meal for a birthday party Kingsolver realizes that living her life with a deep connection to the food she eats and feeds her family gives it more meaning. She expresses her awe at the process that begins with seeds and ends with the elaborate birthday meal enjoyed by her loved ones. Seeing the “genesis and connection with the annual cycles” allows the birthday celebration to have more meaning than a “slap on the back and jokes about memory loss.” The family begins to feel connected in a meaningful way, supported by their new natural connection to the earth’s cyclical patterns.
Kingsolver feels a connection to different generations and historical times during the process of making cheese from scratch. While making her dairy delight she reflects upon the preceding generations of cheese makers — artisans of Camembert, Greek shepherds, and Mongols. While stretching her Mozzarella she feels part of a timeless tradition of people enjoying the art of simple foods and their preparation. Kingsolver also comments on her deceased mother in law Nonnie, who was famed for her fresh Mozzarella. As Kingsolver sits there in her kitchen with her daughters, making cheese with the same recipe as her mother in law she can’t help but feel Nonnie’s presence. Food traditions create connection to the earth, but also to the people we love.
I too value the artistry and love which goes into preparing good food. As a gourmet “wanna be”, I always loved to try new recipes, scouring the latest food magazines for intriguing recipes and reading cook books like novels. I believed food to be one of life’s easiest pleasures and valued preparing, sharing, hosting many a feast for family and friends. At one point in my life, it was a daily (and in some ways sacred) ritual for three meals and perhaps a snack or two (or three!) as I created healthy food options for my children. I loved putting together little plates of food for them…trying to urge them to become more adventuresome with their tastes but often relying on tepid standbys of macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and cereal. Even so, I always added in some fresh fruit or vegetable (celery with peanut butter, anyone?) and tried to have the food look nice on the plates with a proper place setting. It was a simple joy and I felt the privilege of nourishing young lives…yes, there was a deep connection occuring, even though I never planted a garden or gathered eggs.