Green Group discussion

Michael Pollan writes beautifully, and I loved The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. This book didn't work quite as well for me. The prose in the opening chapters is quite dense: very erudite, but slow going. I struggled to maintain momentum (as did my wife, who gave up 50 pages in). Eventually, I found a "reading rhythm" and began to enjoy it. I really liked the way Pollan compared major forms of cooking with the classical four elements: fire for whole-hog barbecue; water for soups, stews, and braises; air for freshly baked bread; and earth for fermented foods (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled veggies, cheeses, beer, and wine). It was fascinating to see how Pollan sought out experts in each cooking specialty to help him learn enough to use the techniques with family and friends at home. The book overflows with fascinating facts about nutrition, anthropology, history, food chemistry, and plenty of philosophy.

Okay, I have to admit: the section on brewing beer was my favorite. Pollan points out that beer actually encapsulates all four elements at various points in the brewing process. Just as I always suspected: beer is the perfect food!

If you enjoy cooking - or just want to better understand what we may have lost, culturally and health-wise, in the move away from traditional food preparation to industrial food products - you'll find value in this book. It's definitely worth a read!

Michael Pollan is an extremely thorough investigative reporter, and he can be very difficult to plow through. I've had my students read "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and quite frankly, they weren't happy. Four chapters on corn; they just didn't understand the need for that many chapters on corn. :-)

But I love him. I've read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" (which is less dense and much more readable).

This sounds wonderful. I never liked to cook, but then after going to Europe the first time, I realized that there was a difference in our foods. So I started to research, came across Pollan, and found out, yes, there is something different about American food. Read his books, then move to others, and then started to cook. Now I love cooking! So much healthier to cook from scratch - or almost scratch - than eating the highly processed food that makes up most of the American diet.

And after visiting Italy this past summer, I'm even more obsessed with cooking. All the food in Italy was so natural and fresh. (That was our buzzword the entire time that we were in Italy..."fresh.")

I say this every year, but I really would love to start a garden. But I'm a bit spoiled - I have a number of farmer's markets near me to choose from all summer, and a Whole Foods a couple of miles away.

I also enjoyed Cooked by Michael Pollan. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak about the book and really looked forward to digging in. The fist section was pretty hard to forge through, not because it wasn't interesting, it just didn't seem to flow as well as the rest of the book. Maybe it just took me awhile to adjust to his writing style, as Brian said above.

The section on cooking with the different elements were not only historically informative, but he offered some pretty good tips on how to execute them well.

I am proud to say I am making my own bread now with the whole wheat starter he detailed, as well as a sourdough starter. I also have a couple crocks of saurkraut "rotting" in my kitchen....I have been playing with soups and braises using all the frozen and dehydrated veggies from last summer's garden surplus. Yum! I am definately increasing my garlic, onion and celery production this year! As far as grilling...I'm scared. If there is a way to burn meat, I seem to find it, but I look forward to trying the low heat, smoke-centric methods he outlined in the first section.