Customer Reviews

Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally

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With all due respect, I have to disagree with the accusation that the authors "finked out" when the winter months came. Yes, they did a lot of traveling, but when they returned home they found "an incredible surplus of good food". Why? Because they had relied on the same techniques that many of our ancestors relied on to get through the harsh winter months (before there were super Walmarts on every corner): they canned, froze/cold stored and dried when things were in season.

I hardly believe that the point of all this is to say "you must eat 100% within a 100 mile radius" or you have failed, but rather to just TRY. Search out your local producers (it takes a lot of leg work at first, but it's worth it), support your local economy. And, in doing so, you'll meet some incredible people who are not just dedicated to protecting the environment, but who are also very concerned about your health.

Eat Locally. The subject of this book has the potential to be incredibly preachy, fundamentalist, and dogmatic. Instead, it's down to earth, fun, and intelligent. The authors teamed up to write about their yearlong adventure from 2 points of view - his and hers - alternating author by chapter. I was afraid when I bought this book that it would end up being another well-intentioned half-read paperweight sitting on my bookshelf. I'm happy to report that I devoured it in just a few sittings. It even has recipes.

It's easy to feel helpless to take any meaningful action when faced with all that is going on. The grassroots effort to eat locally has the potential for effecting real change in our landscape, economy, and health. After reading this book, "Eat Local" is more than just a slogan - its something I intend to do, and just as importantly, its something I intend to have fun with.

Reading Plenty begins with whimsy. I enjoyed its early, leisurely pace. A seemingly perfect read. But, here's the thing: there's a passage that describes tomato picking in a late-season field that's littered with rotting fruit. Surprisingly, though, the sweetest finds are found among pounds of odd-shaped discards. That's how I felt about this gem. And that's why I kept reading.

The day-to-day descriptions of the authors' relationship with each other, their families and their relationships with the land are what hooked me. There's great writing in sincerity. The authors are honest. Reflective. And funny. Sadly, though, the best passages are buried in a lot of context that I suspect the editors thought were important and necessary ... like a magazine feature gone wrong.

Would I read the book again? No. Did I learn something. Yeah. Does it linger and would I recommend it? Absolutely.

I just finished this book and liked it so much I had to add a review. I had already heard about their 100-mile diet and I had read their magazine articles from the web site, so I was reluctant to pay full price for the hard cover, but am so glad I did! It is not just a reprinting of the web site, in fact I recognized very little material. It is not a how-to book or strictly an investigative report. It is the perfect blend of memoir, essay, journalism, with a little how-to as seasoning. I turned the pages as fast as a good novel! I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it! I would recommend it to most anyone, not just foodies or regional readers.

As you can see by the title, I've just finished reading Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. Ms. Smith and Mr. MacKinnon are 2 journalists who live together in a one bedroom apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia. They decide to try the experiment of eating only local food for the year when they learn that the food a typical North American eats travels 1500 to 3000 miles from origin to plate. They define "local" as a 100 mile radius, determined in part by the geography around them, i.e. mountains, ocean, etc...
One of the problems they face is that they decide to start the experiment on March 21, the first day of Spring, without have really prepared for it. They start off eating mainly cabbage and potatoes for weeks on end. Another issue was wheat. They find a local farmer who had planted wheat as an experiment the year before, but had abandoned it. He let them have as much as they wanted out of a 1-ton bag. Unfortunately the wheat was infested with rodents, and later weevils. Months later they find another farmer who supplies them with fresh flour and bread. They plant a garden in a community plot and cultivate a group of farmers and fishermen and give themselves up to preserving food for the winter.
But this isn't just a story of food and eating. It's also a love story. The authors alternate writing the various sections. Ms. Smith grew up in a home where her father slowly died of MS. She was always dreaming of being happier "somewhere else" and developed a serious case of wanderlust. During this year of local eating, she is wondering if her 14 year relationship with Mr. MacKinnon was all there was to life and if she shouldn't strike out again on her own just for the novelty of it all. She falls into a deep depression. Mr. MacKinnon knows something is wrong, but can't get Ms. Smith to talk to him about it. He's about to give up on the relationship, when he's sent out on a journalistic assignment for a few weeks. Ms. Smith realizes how full her life is with Mr. MacKinnon in it and sets out to woo him back. The book was written 2 years ago and they are still going strong. They have a website detailing their on-going efforts to eat responsibly. www.100milediet.org

Is that a weird thing to ask of a book about gardening and eating? I'm not sure. After reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," I thought the experiences of 20-somethings in the Pacific Northwest (like I am) would be even better to read about. Instead I found them a lot less welcoming to their story than Kingsolver was. I never got a good picture of who these people were - I know they're real but even in nonfiction you need to flesh out your "characters."

Although you do get insights into where they pick up individual elements of their meals and what that's like for them, the overall image of the day-to-day diet and their relationship to it was patchy for me. Didn't quite work for me as a novel or as a how-to.

I'll keep it in my library and give it another shot someday, but won't be lending it to my friends who get interested in slow food as a starter text.

Even if you want to eat at McDonald's every day and your idea of eating local is only going to Costcos within 20 miles, you will enjoy this book (and you might even gain from some reflection inspired by the book). The authors are very gifted and share personal and interesting events and reflections in a narrative that is a page-turner. Kudos for that alone. Their dedication to their 100 mile pledge, and their tenacity and smarts at following it, while growing through a challenging patch in their personal relationship, is admirable and makes for compelling reading. Some pages do wax preachy, but only a few. Sometimes James overdoes the metaphors, and he makes a wry nod to this possibility late in the book when he admits that maybe sometimes a walnut is just a walnut. Now and then the two come off as a little precious, but nothing wrong with that -- better a real picture than an altered one. Interestingly, until the book gave cues of their age, I thought they were in their late 40s or so -- the early chapters are written in the voices of people who have lived awhile. On the one hand, I assume there is a maturity and depth in these 30 somethings that I should have had at that age; on the other hand, I do hope they lighten up sometimes. The takeway, however, is that this is a terrific read.

This book opened my eyes to just how much we spend on our food and just how poorly we are fed. The triumph of the food industry in the 20th century is that we feed more people for less than ever before. The sad part is that everybody eats the same thing, and we pay more for it than ever before in other ways than our grocery bill.

It is written in alternate fashion, first one chapter by Alisa Smith, followed by a chapter written by James MacKinnon, her mate. They chronicle their efforts at eating only what they can obtain within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, BC, making exceptions only for food already on their pantry shelves.

Much more than the story of a year of local eating, the book also explores this couple's struggle to revive other important relationships. That they succeed in every way is a great encouragement to anyone troubled at finding themselves disconnected.

It will make you yearn for the food options of yesteryear - who knew there were so many dozens of different varieties of honey, or that there was once an orange variety that would thrive in BC? Salt Island alone grew more varieties of wheat and apples than are even available today. Your friendly local butcher knew what cut you preferred, and you knew you could trust your fish market man.

Fortunately, all that variety is not lost forever. Small seed companies like Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, OR, and seed exchanges like The Seed Savers Exchange (google them) are helping restore heirloom varieties to prominence. Read this book, then buy or trade some seeds and plant them, go shopping at your local farmers' market, and help change the way we eat!

This is the story of a couple (both freelance journalists) living in Canada's Northwest who decided to only eat food within a 100 mile radius for 1 year. The only exception being when they were traveling or if someone invited them out for dinner in order to be polite. I think they ended up eating locally for something like 90% of the time. This may sound like something relatively easy to do. But then you realize they couldn't eat any carbs (no wheat grew in their region), had very little meat, and spent most of their year living in a rather cold and crisp area. Every seasoning they used had to be local. Every ingredient. Every ounce of food. They had no salt. No butter. No bread of any kind. Starting to get the picture? It was a thrilling read. And challenging to me. It's crazy when you start realizing how far your food has traveled. Especially when our local economies used to support a much broader and diverse food source. But because of globalization, most farms have closed and our food is shipped in from all across the States and the world. It's definitely much harder for me to pick up bananas in the winter now. Or fish from Japan. Knowing that much of the transportation of this food leads to all kinds of pollution and waste in packaging in it's transport. It's extremely challenging to read. That's all I'll say.

This was enjoyable, but not as good as Animal,Vegtable,.. the biggest lesson, they needed a wife to shop, cook and preserve food, it was almost a full time job. This came as a big surprise, and was not addressed directly in the book. I think they expected just a little more local shopping effort. As the year progressed they got needed attention for writing careers.
Please do not can or preserve any food using their advice, and their ancient cookbook. Please buy and follow the directions of Ball canning. I felt they came very close to food/potamine posioning due to careless food handling.
I grew tired of all their personal problems, can anyone write a book without throwing in all their personal garbage? none of which advanced the book.
I am a locavore, bake all my own bread, have four chickens and a small greenspace for veggies and my 76 year old mom and I can/freeze some food in the fall.I live in the city, and I will not spend 17$ for salad greens. Food is a local issue and its a job/work,,, one many Americans have forgotten about. The book did not address the longterm issue of how much work it is to grow, find , cook ,pereserve food. After all they were only in it for a year of publicity.