 Fields of Plenty
A Farmer's Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It
by Michael Ableman
"A lyrical account of the journey he and his son Anthony took across America in search of small, self-sustaining farms. Mr. Ableman, the founder of the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens in Goleta, Calif., now farms on Salt Spring Island, in British Columbia. He and Anthony set out one summer to learn the secrets of other farmers who were growing their crops, whether wheat, corn or blackberries, without pesticides.
Their spirit, their love of the soil and healthy, locally produced food, is palpable on every page. Mr. Ableman's eloquent photographs, as well as the recipes he picks up along the way, express a powerful alternative to the industrial farm."
- Carol Haddix, Chicago Tribune
"Published just in time for
what we predict to be one of the big food trends
of 2006-saluting farmers- Ableman's book certainly
will help the celebration. The profiles of the farmers
reflect their passion and hard work. Ableman tackles
important questions about food production. At the
end, you'll have a wider awareness of the food on
the dinner table and how it gets there."
- Ann Raver, New York Times
"Writer and photographer Michael
Ableman knows a thing or two about farmers. He's
been one for some 25 years. In his latest book, Fields of Plenty ,
he took a summer off from farm chores and circled
the U.S. in a beat up VW with his son, Aaron. The
two of them visited dozens of farms-and discovered an abundance
of local farmers growing sustainable crops with an
astounding variety of methods. If American agriculture
is sick-from poisonous inputs, monoculture methods,
and overproduction-these folks have the remedy: local
production by men and women who know and love the land.
You can meet some of them on the following pages, and
more of them in Ableman's book."
-
The Editors, Utne
Reader
"Few of us have the opportunity
to see the transformation of real food where it is
grown: at small farms, by people in pursuit of a
vision, across the country. Michael Ableman, an organic
farmer and educator based in British Columbia, left
his own farm behind for the growing season, traveling
from California and New Mexico to Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Maine, Virginia, and back. With a notebook, a camera,
and son Aaron in tow, he recorded an endless summer
of small farms."
-
Susan Chang, The
Boston Globe
"America has undeniably become
a fast-food nation, with the bulk of our meals coming
from cans, freezers or drive-thru windows. In the
newest offering from Ableman, he promises that it
doesn't have to be this way, delightfully chronicling
his quest to experience productive, imaginative,
organic American farms. an engaging hybrid of travelogue,
cookbook and discourse on the new American agrarian
movement. Ableman's findings are far more diverse
than the bucolic cornfields that might come to mind
when thinking about American agriculture. From the
poblano chilies that rise out of the New Mexican
desert to an urban oasis of tomato plants bordering
on Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project to greenhouses
brimming with lettuces along the rocky coastlines of
Maine, the farms that he visits paint a vibrant portrait
of the American landscape. His prose is as ripe as
the summer tomatoes he describes, and the recipes that
accompany each chapter are a tempting combination of
regional favorites and new flavors."
-
Kirkus Reviews
"Fields of Plenty weaves a
well-told narrative around a lovely set of photos,
also by Ableman, documenting a determined and growing
movement designed to reframe the food problem in
the U.S. Ableman, a working farmer himself, focuses
his pen and camera on small-scale organic growers
who hail from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds.
All seem intent on reclaiming the sensual pleasure
of cultivating, cooking, and eating. In Fields of
Plenty, Ableman points to a way forward. He wants
to retrieve food from the margin of human life, where
it makes plenty of trouble, and plunk it right down
at the center. But he doesn't paint a sentimental
picture of what such a world would be like."
- Tom Philpott, Grist Magazine
"Fields Of Plenty is part
travel diary, part cookbook, part expose. Packaged
together with first-person narratives, color photographs
and wonderful recipes, Fields Of Plenty will fill
readers' souls as well as their stomachs. Fans of Fast Food Nation as
well as critics of big-business agriculture will
appreciate the stories. Foodies will love the taste
of how real food is grown, and cooks will love the
many and varied recipes. There is plenty for everyone."
-
Lauren Chapin, The Kansas
City Star
"Mr. Ableman writes very well,
He maintains a solid and personable style that's
intimate but not indulged. And he stays out of the
way and offers a vivid sense of the farmers and their
different settings. The fusion of his writing and
the pictures and recipes offered along the way will
delight and energize you. Ableman has written an
excellent book that brings home the pleasures and
importance of bringing the growing of our food back
to a sustainable and human scale for the health of
the earth and our bodies. You are on good terms with
your doctor and maybe your mechanic, but if we are
what we eat, doesn't it seem like a good idea to
know who your farmer is?"
-
Lin Rolens, Santa
Barbara News Press
"The chronicle of a farmer's
journey to the frontiers of American agriculture
today, Fields of Plenty is a book of rare beauty
and hope. American agriculture is in the process
of being reinvented by the farmers Michael Ableman
introduces us to here, and to overhear these pioneers
in conversation with one of their own is exhilarating."
-
Michael Pollan, author of The
Omnivore's Dilemma
"This is a timely and
powerful portrait of the new agrarian movement that
is sweeping this country. Michael Ableman's compelling
stories and exquisite photographs tell a story that
we too often forget; that the richness and beauty
of our food is inextricably connected to a community
of innovative and passionate farmers and to the land
that they nurture."
-
Alice
Waters, Chez Panisse restaurant
"For "Fields of Plenty: A Farmer's Journey
in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It," his
third book, Ableman, nearly 50, leaves the farm midsummer
for the first time in 20 years, striking out in a 1989
VW van ("essentials" packed include a wooden
fife and two blues harmonicas) with his grown son Aaron,
leaving his wife and 2-year-old son behind to tend
to his own fields of plenty.who've stood against the
monoculture of corporate agriculture, people who drive
their own produce to market or to local kitchens, in
the inner city and out the rural routes, who grow 22
kinds of eggplant or 56 cereals, from the Northwest
through California, to New Mexico, Wisconsin, Maine,
Delaware and back across, 25 farms in all.The array
of people and produce, the recipes and almost-lurid
photographs that illustrate the fields Ableman visits
and the meals he's fed, are almost enough to convert
some of us pencil pushers out of the cubicles and back
to the soil."
-
Oregonian
"When this book landed on
my desk before the holidays, two thoughts came to
me: First, what a lovely idea for a book and, second,
I wish I had written it. "Fields
of Plenty" celebrates the spirit of working the
land and it provides a necessary perspective about
the current state of small-scale farming. The timing
of "Fields of Plenty" is fortuitous: At this
time of year, everyone is making predictions. Mine
is that 2006 will belong to the artisan farmer/food
producer."
-
Hsiao-Ching Chou, Seattle Post Intelligencer
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