Edible Boston Winter 2011 Number 19 : Page 28
The massive late-summer egg recall reinforced the uncomfortable but superbly laid-out message in Daniel Imhoff ’s CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories , and that is: Size matters when it comes to the treatment of the animals we rely on for food. Imhoff collected the voices of the most important thinkers in our nation’s sustainable food movement, including Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, Fred Kirschen-mann, Dan Barber, Eric Schlosser and more. Individual chapters ex-amine our relationship with the confinement operations that produce intensively farmed beef, pork, chicken, fish, dairy and eggs. It addresses the environmental and social impact intensive farming has on local communities, and asks us to think about its ugly reflection on our own humanity. To be blunt: This is a monster-sized book of animal mon-strosities. Many of the nearly 400 photographs are deeply dark and disturbing. And while we appreciate the message, we think that “in-your-face” approach isn’t necessary. Instead, we think the smaller-sized paperback version, The CAFO Reader, gets the meaty message across without the heart-wrenching photos and awkward size. List price: $21.95 (or about 3½ dozen pasture-raised farm-fresh eggs) Cooking and science are in the throes of a steamy romance here in Boston. This fall, Harvard gathered the likes of Ferran Adria, Jose An-dres and others to teach “Science and Cooking” to sell-out crowds. The geekery continues with long-time Central Square resident Jeff Pot-ter’s excellent book Cooking for Geeks . If you’ve always wanted to know the “why” behind everyday cooking rules, or why your trial and error phase too often ends in error, this book is for you. Sure, it has some pretty good recipes, but what we like best are Potter’s explanations on things like: why cracking an egg on a flat surface is preferable to crack-ing it on the side of the bowl; the difference between whisking and stirring; the secrets behind chemical leaveners such as baking soda and baking powder. Be still our hearts: He even pulls together a grid of the six flavors—bitter, salty, sour, sweet, umami and hot—and breaks down ingredients by cultures—Chinese, French, Greek, Indian, Ital-ian, Japanese, Latin America and Southeast Asian. Who does this? Someone who embraces and celebrates his inner geekiness and applies it to food. Pass the pocket protector, we’re smitten. List price: $34.99 (or about the price of a low-end kitchen scale plus a good balloon whisk) 28 www.edibleboston.net
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