Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic KitchenAuthor: Lappe, Anna and Terry, BryantGenre: Food Publisher: Tarcher/Penguin Released: 2006 |
A Review by Aly Walansky
05/07/2006
This gastronomic eureka moment though was a long-time coming…for a long time, including in my very own house…words like "whole grain" and "healthy" connoted fears of "bland" and "boring".
I remember, years ago, my mom attempted to make her signature lasagna recipe healthy. She used whole wheat lasagna noodles, replaced the red meat with lean turkey, and made her sauce from scratch using fresh garden veggies. (Yes, my mom rocks. Just last week, we planted this year's yellow tomato crop.)
The reaction? We all loved it…until she told us the truth about the ingredients. All of the sudden, my dad and my brothers (and myself, I confess) were all about wanting the "real" stuff. Even then, it wasn't our taste buds keeping us from eating healthy…it was the inhibitions propelled by preconceived notions.
Preconceived notions are a biggie. And as much as movies like Supersize Me and books like Fast Food Nation have attempted to pull off the blinders, there are a whole slew of people out there who hear phases like "flax seed nachos" or "soy milk ice cream" and run for the hills. Or refried bean and cheese-laden burritos…whatever the case may be. (Today is Cinco de Mayo and I'm headed for sangria and guacamole tonight…excuse the one track mind…)
That's why I was so excited to see Anna Lappe and Bryant Terry's new work, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. It seems the world is finally ripe for a not-so-rude awakening to organic, healthy, food choices—and with recipes like Chocolate-Pecan Pudding Pie and herb-baked French fries; the transition may be far more delicious than the reader could have even imagined.
It's getting easier and cheaper to eat right--and isn't food that is as good for the wallet as it is for the soul just an added benefit? It's a revolution in food, eating, and in many ways, living—and it's happening one household at a time. Now my family eats whole wheat pasta pretty much exclusively, and this year for Passover, there were whole wheat matzos in our stuffing. Yes, the other stuff is still out there, but when it's yummy to be good to your body, why not just go for it?
Grub is all the guide you need to getting started. Organic and healthy doesn't have to be synonymous with "a diet" (perish the thought!) It's about improving the quality of your life, and the planet's as well. Once upon a time, to worry about such things made you be perceived as a long-haired tree-hugging wannabe hippie who shopped in Park Slope's food co-ops and had one too many cats. Now, you are just, well, cool.
The truth is that choosing the right ingredients for your quesadilla (I recommend the baby bella mushroom variety on page 193) can make the difference between cataclysmic demise of our industrial food system (i.e.: starvation of the masses, extinction of the family farmer, toxic pesticides killing us all) and saving our bodies from a whole host of yucky diet, food, and preservative-borne disease. Not to mention the whole heart disease/obesity/cancer/death thing.
"Everyone eats," says Lappe and Terry, "and choosing Grub—food that is locally grown and fairly made, safe, organic, and delicious—is one of the best ways to improve your health and change the world at the same time. Not a bad deal!" Bryant Terry is an award-winning chef, and has parlayed his cooking finesse into a food activist career, including creation of b-healthy!, a New York-based nonprofit organization designed to training youth the keys to healthy eating and cooking.
There has been a revolution of sorts in ecological farming technologies, Grub serves up ways to join up in the fight. A large part of reinventing our food attitudes and killing those preconceived notions is realizing and accepting that being healthy can be fun and delicious. Don't allow your fears to convince you that the only way to eat healthy is to live on rice cakes. It's just not true! A quick skim through this book's recipes include delights like Chile-roasted plantains, tacos with tomato-rosemary salsa, and yes, even spicy all-green guacamole. (Sorry ... still Cinco de Mayo on the mind)
This work is very much about realizing the past mistakes of our society and at the same time celebrating our future. Being good to our bodies is getting easier, tastier, and more affordable, and it's becoming very realistic to bring the farm right into our own back yard.
Aly Walansky is the Managing Editor of HOOTERS Magazine and the founder of toxicuniverse.com's Diary of a Rock Goddess series. Visit her Web site (See link below).
© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com 05/07/2006
