The Grounded Grub Book Club
This collection of books comes from the founders, Ben & Hannah, as well as our amazing contributors and community! If you have anything you think should be added to the list, reach out and let us know!
The Stop, Nick Saul & Andrea Curtis
The Stop is the story of a Canadian man revolutionizing a food bank and starting a movement. The Stop, a food bank in Toronto, went from handing out cans of food in a dreary space to a lively “community food centre,” offering meals, classes, support and community growth. Learn more about Community Food Centres and their revolutionary work in the food system in Canada on their website.
Buy the book here, find it at a local library, or borrow from a friend!
Salt Fat Acid Heat, Samin Nosrat
This book has gained a huge following, both through print as well as the Netflix series that follows the author as she explores the topics of her book around the world. If you haven’t heard of it, or if you have but haven’t actually read it, I so recommend that you do. Whether you have years of experience in the kitchen or are totally lost in the difference between roasting, broiling, and baking, this book is an incredible resource for building your culinary intuition. Written by the charismatic Samin Nosrat and illustrated by the incredible Wendy Macnaughton, this book is a must-have for every kitchen.
This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth, Jedediah Purdy
“It's written by a person who used to live in the Durham, NC area (where I currently live). It takes a frank look at our current relationship to land with more of an environmental and political perspective than an agricultural perspective…A lot of his experiences are taken from his childhood as the son of back-to-the-land parents. A conversation about land and climate change and commonwealth are inherently intertwined with agriculture, food, and our consumer choices.” Thank you to Emma Volk for the recommendation and synopsis!
Freedom Farmers, Monica M. White
“In May 1967, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort.
Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.” Access here.
Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Countercultural Cook, Alice Waters
“Alice Waters’ long-awaited memoir, Coming to My Senses, was first published in September 2017 but is now getting a second wind thanks to its May paperback release. Waters chronicles her life up through the opening Chez Panisse, from her early childhood in suburban New Jersey and first year of college at UC Santa Barbara to falling in love with France and finding her restaurant’s home on Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue. The narrative is complemented by photographs, letters, and recipes, but it’s Waters’ stark confessions that demystify the aura surrounding her.” - Elaheh Nozari
All that the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Guide to Western Mushrooms, David Arora
Interested in seizing the opportunities of warming weather and doing some mushroom foraging? Look no further! “Even if you don’t live on the west coast, this book is worth buying just because David Arora is brilliant and hilarious. You wouldn’t think that a mushroom guide would be funny, but this one is a scream. I was laughing out loud and waking my wife up.”
Find this book here.
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health, Devon A. Mihesuah, Elizabeth Hoover, Winona LaDuke
“Centuries of colonization and other factors have disrupted indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food systems. This volume explores the meaning and importance of food sovereignty for Native peoples in the United States, and asks whether and how it might be achieved and sustained. Unprecedented in its focus and scope, this collection addresses nearly every aspect of indigenous food sovereignty, from revitalizing ancestral gardens and traditional ways of hunting, gathering, and seed saving to the difficult realities of racism, treaty abrogation, tribal sociopolitical factionalism, and the entrenched beliefs that processed foods are superior to traditional tribal fare. The contributors include scholar-activists in the fields of ethnobotany, history, anthropology, nutrition, insect ecology, biology, marine environmentalism, and federal Indian law, as well as indigenous seed savers and keepers, cooks, farmers, spearfishers, and community activists. After identifying the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, these writers offer advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat, and governmental food control.”
Black, White, and Green: Farmers Markets, Race, and the Green Economy, Alison Hope Alkon
“Farmers markets are much more than places to buy produce. According to advocates for sustainable food systems, they are also places to “vote with your fork” for environmental protection, vibrant communities, and strong local economies. Farmers markets have become essential to the movement for food-system reform and are a shining example of a growing green economy where consumers can shop their way to social change.
Drawing on ethnographic and historical sources, Alkon describes the meanings that farmers market managers, vendors, and consumers attribute to the buying and selling of local organic food, and the ways that those meanings are raced and classed. She mobilizes this research to understand how the green economy fosters visions of social change that are compatible with economic growth while marginalizing those that are not.”
Tomatoland, Barry Estabrook
Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue. Modern plant breeding has tripled yields, but has also produced fruits with dramatically reduced amounts of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C, and tomatoes that have fourteen times more sodium than the tomatoes our parents enjoyed. The relentless drive for low costs has fostered a thriving modern-day slave trade in the United States. Tomatoland reads like a suspenseful whodunit as well as an expose of today's agribusiness systems and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.”
Buy it used online, find it at your local library or borrow from a friend!
The Noma Guide to Fermentation, Rene Redzepi & David Zilber
“The Noma Guide to Fermentation is the scientifically geekiest, the most modern and the most radical [of fermentation guides]. It’s also one of the most illuminating. I’m someone who has all manner of Ball jars and mothers bubbling under her kitchen sink, but this book helped me to finally understand the processes involved. . . . Each recipe is accompanied by ideas for what to actually do with the stuff, bending the mind further to open new food pathways.”— The New York Times Book Review
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver
I stole this book from my parents bookshelf this summer and it was the best decision. When life was throwing craziness at me through the entire month of July, I would travel into the simple life captured in this book. While Kingsolver is known for her fiction, she takes her phenomenal skills to her own life to capture a year of her family seeking to grow most of their food, and buy locally what they cannot. This book covers everything from planting a garden to making cheese while also telling a wonderful story the entire time. It has recipes from the family, but also makes you laugh out loud when you would never expect it. Kingsolver is a brilliant writer and her family steals your heart as they deeply connect with their food system. I am seriously dreaming of doing this someday and I cannot recommend this book enough.
Buy the book here, find it at a local library, or borrow from a friend!
A Farm Dies Once a Year, Arlo Crawford
I stole this book from my parents bookshelf when I was in college and was quickly swept up into this sweet memoir. A Farm Dies Once a Year follows Arlo, a 30-year-old disenchanted by city life as he returns to the organic vegetable farm where he grew up in Pennsylvania. He commits to really farming with his parents and reconnecting to the land, their lifestyle and the food they grow. It is a sweet and lovely book that many of us who live in cities can relate to.
Buy the book here, find it at a local library, or borrow from a friend!
The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs: An Essential Guide to the Flavors of the World, Padma Lakshmi
“Award-winning cookbook author and television host Padma Lakshmi, inspired by her life of traveling across the globe, brings together the world’s spices and herbs in a vibrant, comprehensive alphabetical guide. This definitive culinary reference book is illustrated with rich color photographs that capture the essence of a diverse range of spices and their authentic flavors. The Encyclopedia of Spices and Herbs includes complete descriptions, histories, and cooking suggestions for ingredients from basic herbs to the most exotic seeds and chilies, as well as information on toasting spices, making teas, and infusing various oils and vinegars. And no other market epitomizes Padma’s love for spices and global cuisine than where she spent her childhood—lingering in the aisles of the iconic gourmet food store Kalustyan’s, in New York City.”
Borrow from a friend, check it out from a library, or buy it here!
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, Leah Penniman
“Some of our most cherished sustainable farming practices have roots in African wisdom. Yet, discrimination and violence against African-American farmers has led to their decline from 14 percent of all growers in 1920 to less than 2 percent today, with a corresponding loss of over 14 million acres of land. Further, Black communities suffer disproportionately from illnesses related to lack of access to fresh food and healthy natural ecosystems. Soul Fire Farm, cofounded by author, activist, and farmer Leah Penniman, is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system. Through innovative programs such as the Black-Latinx Farmers Immersion, a sliding-scale farmshare CSA, and Youth Food Justice leadership training, Penniman is part of a global network of farmers working to increase farmland stewardship by people of color, restore Afro-indigenous farming practices, and end food apartheid.
And now, with Farming While Black, Penniman extends that work by offering the first comprehensive manual for African-heritage people ready to reclaim their rightful place of dignified agency in the food system. This one-of-a-kind guide provides readers with a concise “how-to” for all aspects of small-scale farming.” Access here.
Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism, Julie Guthman
“Julie Guthman examines fatness and its relationship to health outcomes to ask if our efforts to prevent “obesity” are sensible, efficacious, or ethical. Guthman takes issue with the currently touted remedy to obesity―promoting food that is local, organic, and farm fresh. While such fare may be tastier and grown in more ecologically sustainable ways, this approach can also reinforce class and race inequalities and neglect other possible explanations for the rise in obesity, including environmental toxins. Arguing that ours is a political economy of bulimia―one that promotes consumption while also insisting upon thinness―Guthman offers a complex analysis of our entire economic system.”
We love this critical piece and how it disrupts the current narrative that can connect sustainability and diet culture. Find it at your local bookstore or online here. Thank you for the recommendation Maya Chang Matunis!
Land Justice: Re-imagining Land, Food and the Commons in the United States, Justine M. Williams & Eric Holt-Gimenez
“Land Justice stands in contrast with so many food movement books that never question the basic premise that with a few adjustments, we can correct the excesses of the capitalist marketplace. Eric Holt-Gimenez lays out the book’s basic premise: “Racial injustice and the stark inequities in property and wealth in the US countryside aren’t just a quirk of history, but a structural feature of capitalist agriculture. This means that in order to succeed in building an alternative agrarian future, today’s social movements will have to dismantle those structures. It is the relationships in the food system, and how we govern them, that really matter.”
Black Food Geographies, Ashanté M. Reese
“In this book, Ashante M. Reese makes clear the structural forces that determine food access in urban areas, highlighting Black residents' navigation of and resistance to unequal food distribution systems. Linking these local food issues to the national problem of systemic racism, Reese examines the history of the majority-Black Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Reese not only documents racism and residential segregation in the nation's capital but also tracks the ways transnational food corporations have shaped food availability. By connecting community members' stories to the larger issues of racism and gentrification, Reese shows there are hundreds of Deanwoods across the country.
Reese's geographies of self-reliance offer an alternative to models that depict Black residents as lacking agency, demonstrating how an ethnographically grounded study can locate and amplify nuances in how Black life unfolds within the context of unequal food access.”
Notes from a Young Black Chef, Kwame Onwuachi
February is Black History Month, which is a reminder to continue to keep equity at the center of our work. Due to systematic racism in farming and the culinary world, it can be hard to find stories of black folks in our food system, but they are so important. Notes from a Young Black Chef is a new memoir by Kwame Onwuachi, a young man who grew up in New York City, competed on Top Chef and follows his tumultuous career in the culinary world, and his important efforts bringing more black chefs into the business. Read more about Onwuachi in this article from the New York Times. The book is slated to become a future film so read it before you see it!
Buy the book here, find it at a local library, or borrow from a friend!
The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, Grace Lee Boggs
“A world dominated by America and driven by cheap oil, easy credit, and conspicuous consumption is unraveling before our eyes. In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements—for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine "revolution" for our times. From her home in Detroit, she reveals how hope and creativity are overcoming despair and decay within the most devastated urban communities. Her book is a manifesto for creating alternative modes of work, politics, and human interaction that will collectively constitute the next American Revolution.”
The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil
I was recently gifted this behemoth of a book and immediately fell in love. With the book I mean. If it’s wine-related, this book covers it. History, geography, wine-making, wine-growing, wine-tasting, varietal characteristics, major wines of every region, it covers it all. Written for people of all levels of knowledge, wether you’re a wine-pro looking for a reference book, or a complete novice just trying to learn the ropes, this book will help you get in touch with your inner sommelier. I know I’m a bit of a food-nerd, but I think books like this are so important because they show us the deep, rich history behind foods/beverages that we see all the time, and teach us about the huge amount of resources that go into developing them!
Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan
This was one of the first books recommended to me when I started to study plants and eventually found my way to food systems. Where Our Food Comes From follows Nikolay Vavilov, one of the first agronomists to ever start a food bank and his quest to end famine through plant breeding. Vavilov later died in a soviet prison, a scapegoat for famines during the time of Stalin, but Nabhan retraces his steps through this book. Nabhan is a renowned agricultural writer who weaves together fantastic stories of food around the globe through the telling of Vavilov’s story. It’s a wonderful read.
Buy the book here, find it at a local library, or borrow from a friend!
Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food Identity Health & Society, A Breeze Harper
“Sistah Vegan is not about preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism. Rather, the book is about how a group of black-identified female vegans perceive nutrition, food, ecological sustainability, health and healing, animal rights, parenting, social justice, spirituality, hair care, race, gender-identification, womanism, and liberation that all go against the (refined and bleached) grain of our dysfunctional society.”
Find this series of narratives, critical essays, poems, and reflections from North-American black identified vegans here. Thank you for the recommendation Eva Kahn!
BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts, Stella Parks
“We wanted a table of cake, an excuse to throw tea party, and a chance to dive deep into America’s sugary history. BraveTart isn’t a swanky bakery cookbook or a cheerful blogger’s “sugar addiction” on display, it’s dessert scholarship. I’d argue that no other dessert cookbook has pulled off such a feat—giving a full historical analysis of Oreos before offering an at-home recipe better than the original—and certainly not with such humor. BraveTart is a blast to read, an adventure to cook from, and one of the most essential cookbooks in the modern cookbook canon alongside Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, The Food Lab, and Six Seasons.”
We love books that not only inspire, but educate and motivate us to be more independent in the kitchen! Check out this book here.
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
“Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.”
Grounded Grub side-note: This is Hannah’s favorite book of all time! Can’t recommend enough! Find it here!
A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth, Chris Smaje
“In a groundbreaking debut, farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje argues that organising society around small-scale farming offers the soundest, sanest and most reasonable response to climate change and other crises of civilisation—and will yield humanity’s best chance at survival.
Drawing on a vast range of sources from across a multitude of disciplines, A Small Farm Future analyses the complex forces that make societal change inevitable; explains how low-carbon, locally self-reliant agrarian communities can empower us to successfully confront these changes head on; and explores the pathways for delivering this vision politically.
Challenging both conventional wisdom and utopian blueprints, A Small Farm Future offers rigorous original analysis of wicked problems and hidden opportunities in a way that illuminates the path toward functional local economies, effective self-provisioning, agricultural diversity and a shared earth.” Read more here.