The back cover on the advance copy of “Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally” categorizes it as a cookbook, but it actually reads variously as a chronicle of two people’s sincere attempt to eat locally, a history of farming in North America and, perhaps most of all, the diary of a stalled marriage.
Each chapter twitches uncomfortably between the perspectives of the two authors, Alisa Smith and J.B. (Jim) MacKinnon, as they confront the modern realities of romance and agriculture together. A reader will be drawn into a number of “he said, she said” conflicts that seem to have existed long before the two began their attempt to eat nothing but what could be grown within a 100-mile distance of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Frankly, when two people are this dissatisfied with each other, spending time seething on paper about being served potatoes for dinner yet again is probably not a salve for the relationship, nor is it something that belongs in a book that is supposed to be encouraging people to think ecologically. The problem with “Plenty” is that it has an identity crisis. Is it really a cookbook? Each chapter begins with a recipe, but if Smith’s and MacKinnon’s experience is any indication, trolling for the necessary local ingredients is an exhaustive, full-time job, and an expensive one at that.
The pair endlessly frets over matters such as whether Oregon and Washington state cheeses technically qualify as local, and even to a reader who recognizes and espouses some of the virtues of seasonal eating, it is obvious that these people are advocates of what can only be called an extreme lifestyle.
It isn’t that there is necessarily anything wrong with driving 16 hours to “vacation” in a secluded cabin in a town that by the authors’ own admission is hard to describe without the use of quotation marks (“house,” “store,” “town”). The question is, why? On the way, they stop at nearly every roadside farm stand in their endless search for local sustenance.
“We needed vegetables like these, foods that could survive without refrigeration for two weeks or more,” Smith says. After finally arriving at their property, the couple has yet another setback in a series of many.
“I was surprised to see that the cherry limbs were bare,” Smith writes. “‘A bear ate them all,’ James said. I peered though a squirrel hole directly into the cabin’s kitchen and foresaw a lot of long nights ahead.” Uh oh, what now? Fresh fish for dinner? Only if they can catch some and start a fire.
At times, “Plenty” veers off on tangents concerning the diminishing number of farmers in North America, and the atrocities committed against livestock by the corporations that run most farms in the U.S. and Canada. These are genuine and thoughtful sections, but taken as a whole they seem to further disjoint the book and confuse its message. Several unflattering statistics are hurled at the U.S. in particular, concerning obesity rates and the ecological costs affecting this country by the practice of outsourcing much of its crops.
None of it is good news, of course, but the inference that eating local insects (yes, many of Smith and MacKinnon’s acquaintances enjoy ants and other such delicacies) and hoarding root vegetables will suddenly reverse the current course is misleading. Naturally, eating more healthfully overall is desirable, but the reality is that cost is a prohibitive issue to many Americans, and most people do have to go to work every day, rather than forage for their food.
The authors themselves constantly lament the money and time they spend searching for the ingredients to prepare a single meal and often openly lust after processed foods. In one chapter, MacKinnon actually falls off the wagon when he goes home to visit his family. “For nine days, the 100-mile diet was tossed aside in the face of chocolate-chip cookies, seven-layer dip and cinnamon twists,” he admits. “My brother and I drank a lot of that beer I’d been missing.”
For many reasons, Smith and MacKinnon’s journey is an undeniably interesting one. Still, it is unclear whether the book is about mankind’s lack of connection to food, concern over oil consumption, supporting local farmers, living longer or simply losing weight. Is it meant to inspire a cult following in already cultish people, or to instill some sense of urgency in the uninitiated? The message is mixed, but the goal, while probably unattainable, should be pursued in whatever small way is manageable.
Andrea Berggren is a Denver-based freelance writer and a former Denver Post staffer.
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NONFICTION
Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon
$24
