Our Sustainable Table - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865474451 ISBN 13: 9780865474451

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1990

Synopsis

Thirteen essays by food producers and consumers address such topics as holistic resource management, environmentally sustainable systems, and the shortsightedness of modern agribusiness

About this title

About the Author

Robert Clark's first book, The Solace of Food: A Life of James Beard, which received full page reviews and/or cover treatment in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle and also won the Julia Child IAACP award. His other non-fiction books include River of the West, a chronicle of the Columbia River, and My Grandfather’s House, a memoir that was named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in biography.

Clark is the author of four novels: In the Deep Midwinter; Lives of the Artists; Love Among the Ruins, a double BookSense 76 pick in both hardcover and paper; and Mr. White’s Confession, which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel as well as the PNBA Award. Clark lives in Seattle.

From Publishers Weekly

Under Clark's stewardship, 13 essays (one is actually a short story) attempt to link a decline in the quality of food with a historical deterioration of the quality of American farm life, while making it clear that "food that tastes good and is good for you is not just a private indulgence but a force for sustaining families and communities," as Clark puts it. This proposition is attractive--we should be Jeffersonian farmers, not commodities traders--but also ambitious, and one might have wished for treatises with a somewhat firmer technical basis. The pieces assembled are really manifestos, pitched variously to hit an unknown, unformed reader. Wes Jackson ( Making Sustainable Agriculture Work ) reassures us that back-to-the-landers may still "enjoy French wine, Russian novels, Greek philosophy, and Tuscan cooking." Alice Waters ( Chez Panisse Cooking ) recounts her famous Bay Area restaurant's painstaking pursuit of a supply chain of reliably good ingredients, yet neglects to discuss gastronomic values or even how costs are absorbed. Although poet and novelist Wendell Berry ( Remembering ), a familiar voice on the downfall of agriculture, is represented, the collection's moral and intellectual challenge does not quite rise to his usual standard. Clark is editor of the Journal of Gastronomy.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865474451
• ISBN 13: 9780865474451
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176
• Editor: Clark Robert