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Connecting People with Nature PAGE LAMBERT Connecting Writers with Words |
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CELEBRATE 15 YEARS
WRITING ON THE RIVER!!
August, 2012 | |
COMPLETE DETAILS | |
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FEATURED NONPROFIT CONFERENCE
Albuquerque, New Mexico  | | How to Feed Nine Billion People From the Ground Up: Soil, Seeds, Water, Plants, Livestock, Forests, Organics, and People. DETAILS | |
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LAST MINUTE REMINDER
Through the Eyes of a Horse
Literature & Landscape of the Horse Retreat, Vee Bar Guest Ranch, WY
June 2-7, 2012
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Quick Links | |
(at least the things I can repeat)
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Greetings! | Peruvian Guinea Pigs Raised for Food |
A friend gave me some interesting advice about my upcoming "Weaving Words & Women" trip to Peru: "If you eat the guinea pig," he said, "try it roasted, not fried." Well, that got me thinking, and I've been thinking about food ever since: our relationship to it, and how our relationship with food differs from an animal's relationship with food. Take a wolf, for instance, or a bear, or a guinea pig, or a horse, or a snake. If you eat your food raw, "roasted or fried" is not an issue. Nor is it an issue if you swallow your food whole like a python. But knowing where our food comes from, and understanding that all of us are hardwired to respond sensually to our food (whether with a queasy stomach or mouthwatering hunger), is a good tidbit for a writer to gnaw on. I actually like the fact that in Peru guinea pigs are still served with their heads intact. I'm a big believer in knowing who and what we eat (ever since my son killed a garter snake as a young boy, and had to skin it, debone it, and help me cook it). As a writer, one of the first things I ask my characters is: What makes your mouth water? "It was easier," Dubus told editors Gelman and Krupp, "for me to inhabit the role of Colonel Behrani if I could also imagine smelling and tasting what he would: black tea sipped through a sugar cube, saffron and butter over rice stewed tomatoes, sour yogurt with sweet cucumber." I flipped through the impressive Table of Contents, then paused when I found a favorite, Pearl S. Buck's classic The Good Earth. "When Olan bears a son, Wang Lung buys fifty eggs, red paper to dye them and red sugar." They prosper until a devastating drought forces them from the land. Wishing you a table of literary abundance! Page |
 P.S. As we contemplate our relationship with food, I want to share with you the title of a book I read a few months ago. Not a new release, Lierre Keith's The Vegetarian Myth was published by Flashpoint Press in 2009. It is an important book, written by a political activist who was a die-hard vegan for 20 years. Alice Walker calls it, "A wonderful book, full of thoughtful, soultful teachings, and appropriate rage." It is an honest book, exploring our relationship to the plants and animals that must die in order that we may live. Lierre takes us on an intimate journey as she fights, then ultimately accepts, this fact of nature. I urge you to buy it, and share it. Read the introduction. |
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FEATURED TED.COM TALK | |
Frans de Waal
(This will make you smile!) |
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"The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated."
Annie Murphy Paul, New York Times Sunday Review, March 17, 2012 |
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FEATURED BOOK SIGNINGS
SAVE THE DATES!
April 21st Laura Pritchett, Great Colorado Bears
May 5th, Mary Taylor Young, Guide to Colorado Mammals
May 9th, Ron Rash, The Cove
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Will appeal to literate carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores.
(Stay tuned for more about RON RASH when I get back from Peru) | |
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If you desire a more creative relationship with the natural world, read the latest post at
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