A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France
Author: Georgeanne Brennan
Georgeanne Brennan moved to Provence in 1970, seeking a simpler life. She set off on her many adventures in Provençale cuisine by tracking down a herd of goats, a cool workshop, some rennet, and the lost art of making fresh goat cheese. From this first effort throughout her time in Provence, Brennan transformed from novice fromagère to renowned, James Beard Foundation Award–winning cookbook author and food writer.
A Pig in Provence is the story of how Georgeanne Brennan fell in love with Provence. But it’s also the story of making a life beyond the well-trodden path and the story of how food can unite a community. In loving detail, Brennan tells of the herders who maintain a centuries-old grazing route, of the community feast that brings a town to one table, and of the daily rhythms and joys of living by the cycles of food and nature.
Sprinkled with recipes that offer samples of Brennan’s Provençale cooking, A Pig in Provence is a food memoir that urges you to savor every morsel.
The New York Times - Pamela Paul
With her historian's appreciation for fading and bygone traditions, Brennan offers fascinating accounts of the mass sheepherding known as transhumance and the habits of the itinerant food purveyors of the Provenзal hinterlands. She revels equally in the preparation and consumption of the regional cuisine, whether it's chocolate cake moistened with pig's blood or le grand aпoli, a local festival in which snails and vegetables are doused in garlic and olive oil and gobbled up at communal tables. "In listening to people recount their food memories around a table, I've seen their eyes glow and their body language soften with the telling of the taste, smell and texture of a beloved dish." You can almost hear her lips smacking.
Interesting textbook: Why Were Liberals or Into the Storm
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World
Author: Greg Critser
In this astonishing expose, journalist Greg Critser looks beyond the sensational headlines to reveal why nearly 60 percent of Americans are now overweight. Critser's sharp-eyed reportage and sharp-tongued analysis make for a disarmingly funny and truly alarming book. Critser investigates the many factors of American life -- from supersize to Super Mario, from high-fructose corn syrup to the high cost of physical education in schools -- that have converged and conspired to make us some of the fattest people on the planet. He also explains why pediatricians are treating conditions rarely before noticed in children, why Type 2 diabetes is on the rise, and how agribusiness has unwittingly altered the American diet.
Los Angeles Times
About 20% of us are so overweight that our lives will likely be cut short by excess fat, writes Pasadena journalist Greg Critser in his informative and readable book, Fat Land. Critser cites experts in the fields of obesity, epidemiology, nutrition and public health as he looks into the reasons behind this fattening of America: If current eating and exercising patterns are left unchecked, almost all Americans will be overweight by 2050, according to one expert he consults. According to this same expert, a physiologist Critser calls "the dean of obesity studies," becoming obese is now the "normal response to the American environment." — Bernadette Murphy
Publishers Weekly
You reap what you sow. According to Critser, a leading journalist on health and obesity, America about 30 years ago went crazy sowing corn. Determined to satisfy an American public that "wanted what it wanted when it wanted it," agriculture secretary Earl Butz determined to lower American food prices by ending restrictions on trade and growing. The superabundance of cheap corn that resulted inspired Japanese scientists to invent a cheap sweetener called "high fructose corn syrup." This sweetener made food look and taste so great that it soon found its way into everything from bread to soda pop. Researchers ignored the way the stuff seemed to trigger fat storage. In his illuminating first book (which began life as a cover story for Harper's Magazine), Critser details what happened as this river of corn syrup (and cheap, lardlike palm oil) met with a fast-food marketing strategy that prized sales-via supersized "value" meals-over quality or conscience. The surgeon general has declared obesity an epidemic. About 61% of Americans are now overweight-20% of us are obese. Type 2 (i.e., fat-related) diabetes is exploding, even among children. Critser vividly describes the physical suffering that comes from being fat. He shows how the poor become the fattest, victimized above all by the lack of awareness. Critser's book is a good first step in rectifying that. In vivid prose conveying the urgency of the situation, with just the right amount of detail for general readers, Critser tells a story that they won't be able to shake when they pass the soda pop aisle in the supermarket. This book should attract a wide readership. (Jan. 14) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Childhood obesity, diabetes, and related illnesses are becoming major health problems in America. Nutrition journalist Critser presents a critical analysis of the many social and economic factors that make Americans, contrary to the book's subtitle, the second-fattest people in the world (the South Sea Islanders are fatter). He blames parents' reluctance to monitor their children's eating habits; the marketing tactics of fast-food companies, which influence us to overeat; the preponderance of fad diets; the phasing out of physical education programs in schools; and the sale of fast foods at schools to save money on dining facilities. Lower-income families have higher rates of obesity regardless of race, ethnicity, and gender, which the author attributes to lack of information about diet and exercise and the wide diversity of cultural beliefs about weight, body size, and self-esteem. Critser urges Americans to tackle obesity head on, concluding with descriptions of initiatives that worked when communities launched a cooperative effort to change their eating habits and avoid the path to lifelong obesity. An important work that belongs in all nutrition and public health collections. [See also Robert Pool's excellent Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic and Eric Schlosser's scathing Fast Food Nation.-Ed.]-Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Why worry about bioterrorism? We're poisoning ourselves with calories, says freelance journalist and former fatty Crister. You are probably overweight; more than 60% of American adults are. Fat is pandemic. We are grazing, snacking, eating mountains of fat. Worse, we are stuffing our kids like Strasbourg geese. The problem goes back at least a generation, to the importation of palm oil (a.k.a. "tree lard") and the use of high-fructose sweeteners under the aegis of Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. Tasty, long-lasting junk food could be formulated with these cheap ingredients, never mind the dangerous health effects. Pepsi and Pizza Hut took over school lunchrooms. At home or in restaurants, portion sizes burgeoned. Sprawled before our TVs we watched Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda. We believed Dr. Atkins. Kids waddled through fading Phys. Ed. programs. Now, family, school, culture, ethnicity, and income all influence excess caloric intake. Gluttony doesn't seem so sinful today. But fat is bad, Crister says. Increased risk factors include coronary heart disease, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, gall bladder disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and endometrial cancer, each with a bad prognosis. Food science, metabolic mechanics, and medical details are all set forth, though readers who find this book contains more than they want to absorb could profitably settle for the Harper's cover story that spawned it. The text, though, is generally lean and lucid, with wry commentary on the social aspects of Phat America. J. Lo's behind isn't so big, the author concludes, and anorexia isn't very widespread. Preventing our children from looking like mini sumo wrestlers is atimely idea, and this text is a worthy contribution. (It was apparently written before McDonald's announced reduced use of transfats, surely too late with too little.) Crister discusses the politics of this growing public health problem and has some suggestions to fix it. In sum, it takes behavior modification and willpower. Savvy and scary.
Table of Contents:
| Acknowledgments | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| 1 | Up Up Up! (Or, Where the Calories Came From) | 7 |
| 2 | Supersize Me (Who Got the Calories into Our Bellies) | 20 |
| 3 | World Without Boundaries (Who Let the Calories In) | 30 |
| 4 | Why the Calories Stayed in Our Bodies | 63 |
| 5 | What Fat Is, What Fat Isn't | 109 |
| 6 | What the Extra Calories Do to Yo | 127 |
| 7 | What Can Be Done | 155 |
| App.: Fat Land Facts | 179 | |
| Notes | 185 | |
| Index | 223 |
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