The Food Conspiracy Cookbook: How to Start a Neighborhood Buying Club and Eat Cheaply [Paperback]

Lois Wickstrom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1974

When a group of people want to buy food cheaply, but don't want to pay rent or salaries or have a store, and are all willing to work, they have a food conspiracy. Buying club and co-op are other names for this kind of organization, but those names also apply to groups with paid managers, store fronts and profits.

The food conspiracy movement includes people who want an alternative to supermarket shopping and people who desire direct control of the kind and quality of the food they eat, as well as its price.

The first food conspiracy started in Berkeley, California, two months after the People's Park struggle. It has subsequently spread to many large cities and among people of all economic backgrounds.

In July, 1969, three Berkeley residents -- Vivian, Jim and Anita, -- met in Vivian's backyard simply to figure out how they could buy food cheaply. Jim knew about the farmers' market and had a VW bus. Vivian knew about organic food. Anita knew how to formulate questions and how to organize. To enlist others to join them, they started writing blurbs in alternative newspapers and putting out pamphlets entitled variously "eat to conspire" and "conspire to eat." They posted a sign near a grocery store in the student neighborhood, ant placed notices in People's Park bulletins and in the Tenant's Union Newsletter and soon there was a group of us.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a chronicle of a food co-op written by one of its original members...There are any number of ways to run such an organization, some of which were found to work and some of which didn't -- and Lois tells you why...Having digested great numbers of cookbooks, it is a pleasure to find on with a wide variety of original recipes..." -- Straight Creek Journal

"If you have been tempted to organize a food conspiracy because you have a paranoid feeling that the grocery industry is conspiracy against you, you should read this book. In a friendly, conversational style, it will tell you how to do it and just how much work is involved." -- Freedom News

"The Cookbook tells you how to fix things that Betty Crocker wouldn't even think of eating...the three recipes which were quality checked in the Daily's testing kitchen were all really good enough to be eaten all up." -- The Colorado Daily

"This manual's practical know-how on conspiracy management can save time, energy, and money for novice organizers and help get their operation off to a good start." -- The Mother Earth News

From the Publisher

101 Productions is a cookbook publisher. These are good and original recipes. The information about starting a food conspiracy is useful, and its entertaining writing style makes good reading, even for people who aren't yet ready to start a conspiracy of their own. The Food Conspiracy Cookbook fits into our line of unique high quality cookbooks.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co (June 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0912238453
• ISBN-13: 978-0912238456
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 7.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,699,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Every morning and evening, my husband and I walk our dogs and pick up trash around the neighborhood. We live many miles away from our children and grand children, so we don't see them very often. We have an organic garden, and a make-shift greenhouse in the basement for starting seeds. We live in the inner city, so there's no place to park a car. We ride our bikes everywhere that's practical and we belong to PhillyCarShare.org which is a car co-op. When we want a car, we rent it by the hour. We only need a car about once a month.
At the moment, I'm taking a screen-writing class which I'm loving. I also belong to Toastmasters to improve my oral storytelling skills.