Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness
Author: Devon Abbott Mihesuah
Featuring an array of tempting traditional Native recipes and no-nonsense practical advice about health and fitness, Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens, by the acclaimed Choctaw author and scholar Devon Abbott Mihesuah, draws on the rich indigenous heritages of this continent to offer a helpful guide to a healthier life. The first half of the book consists of clear and often pointed discussions about the generally poor state of indigenous health today and how and why many Natives have become separated from their traditional diets, sports, and other activities. Poor health, Mihesuah contends, is a pervasive consequence of colonialism. Indigenous foods and activities can be reclaimed, however, and made relevant for a healthier lifestyle today. By planting gardens, engaging in more exercise and sport, and eating traditional foods, Native peoples can emulate the health and fitness of their ancestors. The second half of the book is a collection of indigenous recipes, including Summer Salsa, Poke Salat Salad, Dakota Waskuya Soup, Osage Pounded Meat, Chickasaw Pashofa, Elk Steak, Choctaw Banaha, Comanche Ata-Kwasa, Stewed Fruit Dessert, and a one-week diet chart. Savory, natural, and steeped in the Native traditions of this land, these recipes are sure to delight and satisfy.
Publishers Weekly
Mihesuah, a member of Oklahoma's Choctaw Nation, teaches at the University of Kansas's Center for Indigenous Nations Studies and edits American Indian Quarterly. She draws upon her heritage, plus research on the evolution of indigenous lifestyles, to provide guidance for healthy living. Citing colonization as a primary influence on Natives' eating and exercising habits, she points to loss of land and an influx of material goods as factors in their physical decline. Mihesuah suggests that returning to the activities of earlier generations-canoeing, running, gardening-will bring fitness, confidence and calm, and includes recipes for dishes like Comanche Ata-Kwasa (roasted corn). The book brims with information, but its approach can overwhelm. Chapters are often weighed down by lengthy lists more appropriate for an appendix. Similarly, if Mihesuah believes her intended readers "fall prey to misleading ads that tell us... fried, salty, fatty, and sugary foods are good for us," or need instructions on "How do you start running?" perhaps descriptions of para-aminobenzoic acid and daily requirements of Vitamin D, in micrograms, are too detailed. This well-researched book will be most useful to launch discussions, or perhaps to read chapter by chapter, which would help parse the data overload. (Dec.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Interesting book: Superplonk 2006 or Soups
The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen
Author: Jacques Pepin
In this captivating memoir, the man whom Julia Child has called "the best chef in America" tells the story of his rise from a frightened apprentice in an exacting Old World kitchen to an Emmy Award<en>winning superstar who taught millions of Americans how to cook and shaped the nation's tastes in the bargain.
As a homesick six-year-old boy in war-ravaged France, Jacques works on a farm in exchange for food, dodging bombs, and bearing witness as German soldiers capture his father, a fighter in the Resistance. Soon Jacques is caught up in the hurly-burly action of his mother's café, where he proves a natural. He endures a literal trial by fire and works his way up the ladder in France's most famous restaurant, finally becoming Charles de Gaulle's personal chef.
When he comes to America, he falls in with a small group of as-yet-unknown food lovers, including Craig Claiborne, James Beard, and Julia Child. The master of the American art of reinvention, Jacques goes on to earn a graduate degree from Columbia University, turn down a job as John F. Kennedy's chef to work at Howard Johnson's, and, after a near-fatal car accident, switch careers to become a charismatic leader in the revolution that changed the way Americans approached food.
The Apprentice is the poignant and sometimes funny tale of a boy's coming of age. It is also the story of America's culinary awakening and the transformation of food from an afterthought to a national preoccupation.
Kirkus Reviews
From chef, author, and cooking-show veteran Pйpin (The Short-Cut Cook, 1990, etc.), an easygoing but proud memoir of his journey through the stations of the kitchen and the food world. Pйpin doesn't gloss over the difficulties involved in scaling the French culinary ladder, but there is never any question that it was exactly what he wanted to be doing. His mother ran a series of comfortable, small-scale, well-received restaurants outside Lyon, and young Jacques took to "the hurly-burly noise of the kitchen. The heat. The sweat. The bumping of bodies. The raised voices. The constant rush of adrenaline." His apprenticeship, feudal in duration and circumstances, wasn't easy, but he reveled in the learning process of observation and imitation, a "visual osmosis" that he conveys in warm, willowy prose. Cooking in a restaurant, we realize, is a calling, not a job. Gradually introduced to a variety of French regional foods, Pйpin learned thoroughly and from the ground up the responsibilities and techniques of each kitchen position. He landed a succession of jobs at great restaurants in Paris and as a private chef before moving to New York and immersing himself in the revolution overtaking American cooking. Hungry for work, he was also gratifyingly unpretentious; he took a job at Howard Johnson's rather than the Kennedy White House because he liked his life in New York. At Ho Jo's, he worked with chefs (many of them blacks from the American South) who lacked formal training but had "natural grace and gut-felt understanding." After a horrific car accident shattered too many bones to count and forced him to leave the kitchen, he turned to writing, teaching, and fostering the growing Americanawareness of good food. Pйpin offers a worm's-eye view of culinary personalities and approaches, and there's no doubt he has earned every ounce of bounty he has received from the kitchen Prose as joyful and rich as the author's food. (Photos, not seen) Author tour. Agent: Doe Coover/Doe Coover Agency
