the Soul of Wine

This book by Gisela Kreglinger is an entertainingly readable, life-affirming and impressively moderation-levelled introduction to the spirituality of wine. She - coming from a winemaking family - has a deep and rich appreciation for the dimensions of life that the juice of the vine can bring out in human social relations, and she has shared with us in this short book a powerful testimony of what this can look and feel like. I was shocked at some of her theological statements but taken poetically I don't think there's anything in here that all but the most ardent of teetotaller-Puritan Christians should really be bridling at. Jesus loved wine enough to not only develop "a reputation" among the Pharisees but even instituted the sharing of wine as part of his own disciples' maintenance of their relations with him and each other - i.e. the Communion - and as such we should think not drunkenly but drinkingly of the Spirit as the gift of life that it is, given to us to share in the abundance of all good things that God has given His Creation - and call me Bernard Black but I've always held good old fermented grape juice as being one of those higher gifts. You know, like cheese, with crackers and olive paté. A recommended gift book to Christians who like a glass or two. Not a recommended gift book to those struggling with over-drinking, as it will likely just send them into Rasputin mode.

Food Rules

This book, a condensation of wisdom and myth-busting on how and what we eat from wise myth-buster on that same topic Michael Pollan, was an easy, interesting and enjoyable read. Several others of his books are on my extensive 'to-read list', and I came across this small volume at a friend's house, coincidentally found a second-hand copy very cheaply the next day, and breezed through it in a spare ninety minutes this morning.

   Please note, I am not concentrating very hard on doing a great post here, as I am running for one of the elected positions in our Students' Union, and voting closes tomorrow, so while I can spare a few minutes to read and write, I do so with laconic urgency before rushing back to brief my campaign team about tomorrow's endeavours and schedule facebook posts about how great I'd be at making stuff sustainable. Wish me luck.

   Anyway. The book.

   It's written as an antidote to America's relationship with food. The typical western diet (he aims it at the USA but here in England much of it rings true too) is horrendously unhealthy for human beings, and so enormous profitable industries have grown up both feeding us this filth (McDonalds et al) and trying to help cure us of it (pseudoscientific nutritional studies, food products with made up benefits, stupid diet fads, etc). Pollan has spent years researching the actual truth of what we know about our food's impact on our wellbeing, and it's actually quite simple. He boils it down into three broad strokes; eat food, mostly plants, not too much. Building on his extensive depth of knowledge and on less-grounded but surprisingly helpful and relevant scraps of folk-wisdom, he works these principles out in 64 easily-digestible apothegms to help reshape our attitudes to food and make us healthier, happier eaters. Some of these smack true ("Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry"), hit hard ("It's not food if it's called by the same name in every language"), narrowing our options ("Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself") but inarguably for our best interests ("Try not to eat alone"). Basically, buy raw ingredients yourself, mostly plant-based, cook proper meals and eat sensibly. I already do* these things so grand.

   As a compact, concise, clear little book, I hope it will be something of a silver bullet in tackling the west's horrific relationship with our foodstuffs. It has the potential to sell extremely widely and be hugely influential in reforming attitudes to the edible, with potentially enormous implications for public health.

   My one gripe with it is the lack of focus on food sustainability, which is a gigantic issue relating at many points to what he discusses. He advocates substantial reduction in meat and dairy, and trying to buy non-processed local produce, which is great as it aids the cause of our ecosystem, but he doesn't directly endorse aiming for veganism, vegetarianism (or even 'ish'). He even takes a stand against meat substitutes,** on the grounds that they are processed and 'fake'. These are things I'd quarrel with him about to some degree but given that his book is aimed at food health, not food sustainability, I can forgive him these.

   It's overall a great little book. Buy one for every person you know whose diet is terrible. Saying that sounds insensitive but if they take heed they may well be able to form new habits and escape a lifetime of miserable obese slavery to America's fourth most revered and third least benevolent god, Junk Food.

* Rule 64, "Break the rules once in a while", I am glad to have, as it allows me to retain the indispensable suffix 'ish' on my status as a herbivore.

** Not all of them. Quorn is literally grown in vats, so while I'd still argue it's far better than meat and should for that reason be encouraged, fair enough. Tofu, tempeh and other such ancient soy-based protein-lumps he allows. I'd like to think the wholly-plant-derived products of certain modern innovators would count too.

Veganomicon

This book, an American vegan cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, will not be done justice in this post due to haphazardity of circumstance, which will also be discussed but likewise probably not done justice in this post.

   I found the book on an evil monopolistic tax-dodging online store (which I shall not name) while searching for vegan cookbooks. It seemed like the best one, so I bought it from elsewhere. I've finished reading through it already since it arrived yesterday morning - not even cooking from it yet, just reading through for drool-inducing interest and getting a familiarity-feel for animal-product-free kitchen-work. Perhaps a cookbook is an odd choice for casual reading, but perhaps a bean is an odd choice for primary protein sourcing, and besides, I read lots of not-so-odd things recreationally too, so shush. I will continue to abuse hyphenation and thereby make up lots of words in this post, sorry. It is very early in the morning as I write. The main stint of reading was done last night, as all my housemates and most of our shared friends were going to fun, and I wasn't, so I hid in my room reading this cookbook to minimise my feelings-of-missing-out during predrinks; regrettably the numerous so-delicious-in-my-imagination-that-reading-them-became-genuinely-gripping recipes and my atrocious sleeping pattern conspired together such that I was still awake when the gang arrived home, and since I have work to do for uni tomorrow anyway it seemed wasteful to go to sleep. I finished the book, chilled with the others briefly, made a cafetiere of coffee and am writing this at around 6am. Once finished with this I'm going to make a start on a chunky problem sheet for a tutorial about economic inequality and poverty.

   Yes. Anyway, the book, apologies.

   It's great. Notsomuch for normal recreational reading (unless you get easily stimulated by descriptions of food and explanations of how to make it), but as a vegan cookbook, heck, even just as a cookbook, it's fabulous. There are brilliant helpful sections on really basic things that everyone kind of knows but a bit of expert advice shines new light on doing them well - like getting to know your kitchen implements, and preparing vegetables, grains and beans in certain ways. If our communal student kitchen were wholly my own I would likely go out tomorrow and fill it with quinoa, kale, squash, avocados, chickpeas and all the other glorious stereotypically-hipsterish eatable-plant-bits, but as I share it with three other young adult males of similar messiness to myself, doing so might cause cupboard-space-havoc. You know. The book's written really accessibly* and even amusingly, the recipe instructions are clear (especially given the helpful introductory chapters on how to prepare basics and use tools), the ingredients nutritionally diverse and relatively easy to find. I actually can't wait to start cooking some of them.

   What was that? Because it's a vegan cookbook you expect me to start trying to proselytise for a vegan lifestyle?** I shouldn't, because [a] strangers' life choices, unless morally detrimental, shouldn't be any of your business to question, and therefore I'm under no obligation to justify a legitimate choice to others, [b] I'll end up getting carried away and doing a huge rant about it, [c] even responding to these hypothetical clamours for explanation will no doubt result in accusations of my own preachiness, and most importantly [d] I really do need to start that tutorial sheet. But regardless, okay then mate, I will (briefly), because people who genuinely believe that a cause is important shouldn't be afraid of proselytising for it, and guess what, veganism is important.
   So basically, I went vegetarian a couple of months before starting uni because I'm proactively terrified of the prospects of climate change. The animal product industry is one of the worst global culprits in emissions, and consumer habits can and do change social trends - so I decided to aim for a meatless diet. I've since gained a growing sympathetic support for animal rights and even learned a fair bit about health benefits of being veggie, but the environmental case still forms the core of my dietary-choice-motivations. Veganism, in cutting out dairy as well as meat from one's intake, further substantially reduces your food's carbon footprint, so it was the logical next step. See the double-asterisk-footnote if you want more on the topic.

   Well, that's me done, hope you enjoyed what's been a considerably-sarkier-than-usual and less-actually-about-a-book-than-usual post. I'm going to go to the library to apply algebraic models to poor people (economics is a weird subject).

* Except for its being American; but while inserting u's into "color" and translating "zucchini" to "courgette" in my head aren't too tricky, converting medieval °F and ounces into sensible °C and grams was. Fortunately there was a conversion table in the back, which unfortunately I found after scrawling my own guides to converting everything in the back of the intro chapter. Ah well.

** Cards on the table, I'm not a hardline dogmatist when it comes to this. My shoes and satchel and wallet and belts, which (vegan friends reading this please note) I bought before going herbivore, are leather. Since taking the plunge into trying to become a citizen of plant-food-world, I've eaten things with dairy products in them from time to time out of convenience, and even the cooked flesh of dead creatures (mostly either in politeness when given food from friends from other cultures, or fried chicken after West Street Live). Nobody's adherence to their own ideal lifestyle is perfect, and I count myself as normal in that regard: consider my veganism more of a guideline I follow as much as expectable. However, these deviances are rare, and increasingly rarer, and so while I'll maybe never be self-disciplined enough to gain full vegan powers, my diet has got healthier, more ethical and much more sustainable, so who's complaining?