Having a garden translates into delicious, practical recipes
By Melinda Harrell
Published in News on February 4, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Liz Meador crafts pan de muerto for the kick-off event for the Wayne County Reads program.
Zucchini chocolate chip cookies, vegetarian chili and celebratory foods like pan de muerto all have one thing in common and that is those ingredients can come from someone in Wayne County's garden or a local farm.
The Wayne County Reads program is introducing the area to these types of recipes and foods with its chosen book this year, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," by Barbara Kingsolver.
The book is based on Kingsolver's family's decision to walk away from the conveniences of a grocery store and prepackaged food. It chronicles a transformative journey of what the family learns and grows as they buy a farm and begin harvesting their own food.
Liz Meador, volunteer for Wayne County Reads, said this book is just a look at what could happen if we step outside the grocery store and learn to survive on the foods that we can grow.
"They preserved, canned, froze. We depend so much on packaged foods, our food has to travel so much and this is a new movement. She calls it locavore, using local products. You are eating things locally that you have grown in your own vegetable patch," Mrs. Meador said about the Kingsolver family.
Mrs. Meador has prepared many dishes from the book and offered up some of those dishes during the kick-off event for the Reads program on Tuesday, Jan. 27.
The kick-off event featured Dr. John O'Sullivan speaking on global food issues and maintaining a sustainable food supply, which also is an important component to the themes behind the Kingsolver book.
"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" doesn't just chronicle a family's journey into a life of self-reliance, but it also offers reasons as to why it is important and recipes. The recipes from this book are wide-ranging and adaptations of popular dishes, except all of them offer the flexibility to have ingredients grown in a domestic garden. These recipes offer and avenue for anyone in the county the option of extreme freshness, from garden to table, without the miles of transportation, GMOs, pesticides and any other problems that arise from pre-packaged, store-bought foods.