Book Description
“Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert.”
–Sara Miles
Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian,” she writes, “or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.” But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.
The mysterious sacrament of communion has sustained Miles ever since, in a faith she’d scorned, in work she’d never imagined. In this astonishing story, she tells how the seeds of her conversion were sown, and what her life has been like since she took that bread.
A lesbian left-wing journalist who covered revolutions around the world, Miles was not the woman her friends expected to see suddenly praising Jesus. She was certainly not the kind of person the government had in mind to run a “faith-based charity.” Religion for her was not about angels or good behavior or piety; it was about real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. The first food pantry she established provided hundreds of poor, elderly, sick, deranged, and marginalized people with lifesaving food and a sense of belonging. Within a few years, the loaves had multiplied, and she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen more pantries.
Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, child abusers, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. She recounts stories about trudging through the rain in housing projects, wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, storing a battered woman’s .375 Magnum in a cookie tin. She writes about the economy of hunger and the ugly politics of food; the meaning of prayer and the physicality of faith. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.
“
The most amazing book.” – Anne Lamott
Customer Reviews:
Anne Lamott loves this book.......2007-10-03
Time magazine asked various writers to reveal their guilty summer reading pleasures. Anne Lamott wrote: The third summer book I've already read is Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles, a memoir that blew me away although I am a nice Protestant girl not normally drawn to book-length writing on the Eucharist. I am going to foist this on every single hard-core left-wing religious nut I know. And make no mistake: there are many of us.
Shocking. . .and that's a good thing.......2007-10-02
You know, there are those books you read and quickly forget. There are those books that give you an interesting thought or two. And then there are books that get under your skin and completely and forever change the way you look at things. This is one of the third kind. This book is powerful, it is overwhelming. You can not read this book and approach the Lord's Supper the same way again. You can not read this book and think of Christianity the same way. This book will change you.
It might also bother you, especially if you are an evangelical. Sara is raw. She's rough. She uses language and lives a lifestyle that would make many Christians furrow their brow. She throws out statements like this: "You know," Swami Jeff told me once, "God couldn't care less about the church. We don't understand the Eucharist, or that bread and wine live within us, so we ritualize the things that hold the mystery. We focus on the container and formalize the mystery. But you can't do that." Which is, of course, so wrong in so many ways. God does care about the Church. The Church is God at work in the world. The book of Ephesians rightly teaches that the greatest metaphor for Christ and the Church is a husband and wife (and the metaphor goes the other way, as well). And there are many other things about this book that are so bothersome. And offensive.
And yet, her voice is necessary, because she get so much right. She understands the radical, accepting love of Jesus Christ for this world. She gets that love for Jesus demands a love for all his children. She gets that serving Christ is more important than showing up to church and looking pretty. "Doing the Gospel rather than just quoting it was the best way I could find out what God was up to." She gets that feeding the poor is one of the essentials of following Christ. And she gets the fact that Christ is for the poor, the outcast, the marginalized, the hungry. She understands that the Kingdom of God is right here, right now, right under our noses, if we would only open our eyes to see it. She hammers home the idea that community is core to Christianity - but not the community we choose; it's the community God calls to us, and calls us to. She gets the Modern Church. "My suspicion was that committees in churches served the same purpose as committees in other institutions: They were holding tanks for people who professed interest in an issue but didn't always want to act." And, I've got to tell you, the story of her conversion, of how she walked into church, received Communion, and was overcome by God, is breathtakingly powerful. I wish all could read her story.
In the end, a lot of Christians will be scandalized by much of who she is and what she says There are certainly parts that make me uncomfortable. And yet there is so much to learn here, so much the Church needs to wrestle with, to understand, to hear - it ought to shock Christians right out of their complacency, into a place where they take Jesus' mandate seriously.
A Conversion to Action.......2007-09-24
Sara Miles shares her story pre-conversion, which is exciting but not necessarily a tragedy. The conversion moment is better described as a process.
Miles tells of her life before converting to Christianity. Raised in an atheist home, she finds little to no sympathy for religious causes. She hints that this is, at least for her mother, a rebellion against her own religious upbringing. There is not much of an overtone that her household was an "active atheist" home...that is, one that taught her to go out of her way to disprove God, join the fight against public faith, and sign petitions against the pledge. She tells more of an upbringing of avoidance....that religion was best ignored.
This is followed by two chapters of her job life, first as a cook in New York City and then as a reporter in Nicaragua around the time of the cartels. She describes the people she meets and the sights and sounds of her experiences in the kitchen and in war, and in both instances very careful to describe the food: how it is prepared, how it is served, how it tastes. She's obviously building to something as she learns cooking shortcuts from her restaurant co-worker and the meals she ate alongside revolutionaries and murderers in Central America. In both cases, it is food prepared generously, earnestly, and with feeling, and shared with much the same intentions. She is always in mixed company, and she wants to emphasize that point as well.
Next begins her life in San Francisco. Everything else serves as background for what she is about to do in this place. If her chief memories up to this point center around food, then it makes sense that her conversion happens because of food as well. For reasons unclear to her, she wanders into a liberal creative Episcopalian Church and receives communion, and there is something about that moment for her that makes sense. It is in the offering, the chewing, the drinking, that the act of receiving Jesus becomes real to her. It takes place in this way, rather than in an evangelist sharing a tract or by someone accosting her with their most carefully crafted arguments. She is welcomed and she is offered bread, and that is when she begins wondering how to follow Jesus.
What she comes up with is forever tied to that first experience. As Sara becomes more involved with her church, she seeks to share this experience with others, and finds that the best way to do that is to organize a food pantry. Usually, when we think of food pantries, we may picture a closet or a section of the church basement set aside with rows of canned goods. When St. Gregory offers their pantry, they set the food--which includes fresh produce--right around the communion table in the sanctuary. The theology of communion is always front and center for Miles and for what she wants to organize. She finds no other way to properly offer food to others than to state it's because Jesus offered it first.
This project is undertaken not without some setbacks and roadblocks. Sara notes the mixed crowd that shows up: the homeless, the addicts, the schemers...she has plenty of stories to tell about them all. More than one person expresses thankfulness; even eventually volunteers to help. But for every one of these, there is the man who tries to take advantage of a timid girl's hospitality, there is a rude Russian with a sense of entitlement, there is the uneasy feeling that Miles gets at points when she delivers food to shut-ins. She sugarcoats none of it; she doesn't romanticize the people she helps or lament when they don't immediately change upon entering the doors of the church.
Perhaps Miles' most biting critique is reserved for the Church itself. One may actually be surprised that, while more conservative churches are mentioned from time to time, she's hardest on the liberals. She openly wonders about the dissonance between their wanting to welcome all people and then her need to fight to offer the pantry a second day. She frequently compares the uniquely creative and vibrant liturgy she experiences at St. Gregory's with the dry traditionalism at a denominational leaders' retreat ("If these are the people who want to hear about experimental liturgy, what are the conservatives like?"). She critiques "limosine liberal" activism-at-a-distance, and at almost every turn it's the white educated middle-class who bear the brunt of what she says.
Miles' story and advocacy comes in the form of experiencing Jesus in sharing bread and then turning right around and experiencing it with others. In many churches, we point to Jesus' preferred crowd of prostitutes and tax collectors, but Miles' story is one of witness to what this actually looks like in a particular place, and the underlying question always concerns why more churches aren't doing the same thing. One of her strongest themes to this effect is how simple it really is to feed others, and how needlessly complicated the church makes it either out of its own institutionalism or avoidance. This is as challenging a book as it is encouraging.
Take this bread: A radical conversion.......2007-09-20
I loved this book, i could not put it down. Sarah had such a way of presenting her life and her love of Jesus who she met through the communion in the eating of bread. As a woman priest i appreciated the role food played in the development of her ministry and those people she encountered in the process of feeding people.
I was interested in how she changed the shape and look of her church in the simple act of feeding the poor. While the Church she belonged to was well known for its development of liturgy, with her conversion she was able to put an action to her faith that helped the Church add another component of being relevant in its community to Christians but more importantly to those on the edge of society.
Rev Wendy Scott
St Peters Parish
Pahiatua
New Zealand
Communion is for Everyone.......2007-09-13
Sara Miles tells an inspiring story of how she found her connection to Christ and his Church. A friend said "I read it in about two days. Awesome awesome. ... " Saying that "... congregations that will live on the edge [like Sara's] are tapping into their energies and become alive and energized that way..." After you read it, seeing what one person can do, you will also be inspired.
Book Description
Good Bread Is Back is a beautifully illustrated book for foodies and Francophiles alike. Widely recognized as a leading expert on French bread, the historian Steven Laurence Kaplan takes readers into aromatic Parisian bakeries as he explains how good bread began to reappear in France in the 1990s, following almost a century of decline in quality.
Kaplan sets the stage for the comeback of good bread by describing how, while bread comprised the bulk of the French diet during the eighteenth century, by the twentieth, per capita consumption had dropped off precipitously. This was largely due to social and economic modernization and the availability of a wider choice of foods. But part of the problem was that the bread did not taste good. Centuries-old artisanal breadmaking techniques were giving way to conveyor belts that churned out flavorless fluff. In a culture in which bread is sacrosanct, bad bread was more than a gastronomical disappointment; it was a threat to France’s sense of itself. With a nudge from the millers (who make the flour) and assistance from the government, bakers rallied, reclaiming their reputations as artisans by marketing their traditionally made loaves as the authentic French bread.
By the mid-1990s, bread officially designated as “bread of the French tradition”—bread made without additives or freezing—was in demand throughout Paris. What makes this artisanal bread good? Kaplan explains, meticulously describing the ideal crust and crumb (interior), mouth feel, aroma, and taste. He discusses the breadmaking process in extraordinary detail, from the ingredients to the kneading, shaping, and baking, and even to the sound bread should make when it comes out of the oven. He offers a system for assessing bread’s quality and a language for discussing its attributes. A historian and a connoisseur, Kaplan does more than tell the story of the revival of good bread in France. He makes the reader see, smell, taste, feel, and even hear why it is so very wonderful that good bread is back.
Amazon.com
As many of us know, bialys are chewy, onion-topped rolls, delicious with a cream-cheese schmeer. They originated in Bialystok, Poland, from which they--and the Jews who made and cherished them--have all but disappeared. In The Bialy Eaters, food writer Mimi Sheraton traces the history of this traditional treat and recounts her pursuit of it from Manhattan's Lower East Side (now bialy central) to Bialystok and elsewhere. Her book is principally a tale of the men and women, many pogrom and Holocaust victims, who have lived to recall the once plentiful kuchen. If the story lacks the thrust and imaginative life another writer might have given it, it is still a compelling blend of culinary investigation and poignant cultural evocation.
After carefully drying and wrapping exemplary bialys from Kossar's bakery in Manhattan to take with her as memory jogs, Sheraton heads first to Poland. She encounters no true bialy in Bialystok (a hamburger-roll-like bun is proffered in its name), nor does she find one in Israel, Paris, or Argentina. Look-sees in Miami Beach, Florida; Chicago; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Beverly Hills, California, are more encouraging, but also reveal underbaked and undersalted versions made--horror of horrors--with cinnamon sugar, raisins, and blueberries. Her investigation achieves moving resolution, however, in the person of Pesach Szsemunz, an ex-Bialystoker and bialy baker who survived Auschwitz, Dachau, and "other concentration camps" and now lives in Australia. "In 1941," he writes Sheraton, "the Nazis came to us, and since then there are no more Bialystoker kuchen, no more kuchen bakeries, and no more Bialystok Jews. [No other] Bialystoker," he adds, "can tell you more." Yet, as Sheraton reveals in her touching book, bialys do live on, delighting those who eat them--a tribute to endurance itself and the power of everyday life. --Arthur Boehm
Book Description
A famed food writer tells the poignant, personal story of her worldwide search for a Polish town's lost world and the daily bread that sustained it.
A passion for bialys, those chewy, crusty rolls with the toasted onion center, drew Mimi Sheraton to the Polish town of Bialystok to explore the history of this Jewish staple. Carefully wrapping, drying, and packing a dozen American bialys to ward off translation problems,
she set out from New York in search of the people who invented this marvelous bread. Instead, she found a place of utter desolation, where turn-of-the-century massacres, followed by the Holocaust, had reduced the number of Jewish residents from fifty thousand to five.
Sheraton became a woman with a mission, traveling to Israel, Paris, Austin, Chicago, Buenos Aires, and New York's Lower East Side to rescue the stories of the scattered Bialystokers. In a bittersweet mix of humor and pathos, she tells of their once-vibrant culture and iconic bread, reviving the exiled memories of those who escaped to the corners of the earth with only their recollections--and one very important recipe--to cherish.
Like Proust's madeleine-inspired reverie,
The Bialy Eaters transports readers to a lost world through its bakers' most beloved, and humble, offering. A meaningful gift for any Jewish holiday, this tribute to the human spirit will also have as broad an appeal as the bialy itself, delighting everyone who celebrates the astonishing endurance of the simplest traditions.
"On a gray and rainy day in November 1992, I stood on Rynek Kosciuszko, the deserted town square of Bialystok, Poland, and was suddenly overcome by the same shadowy sense of loss that I had felt in the old Jewish quarters of Kazimierz in Cracow and Mikulov in Moravia. To anyone who knows their tragic history, these empty streets appear ominously haunting, especially in the somber twilight of a wet, gray afternoon. The damp air seems charged with echoes of silent voices and ghostly wings and the minor-key melodies of fiddlers on rooftops.
"As a slight chill went through me, I had vague intimations that I was at the beginning of an adventure. I could not guess, however, that what had started as a whimsical search would lead me along a more serious path that I was unable to forsake for seven years. Even now I am not sure my quest is over, nor that I want it to be.
"The story began with my passion for the squashy, crusty, onion-topped bread roll known as a bialy and eaten as an alternative to the bagel. Widely popular in New York City and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in the
Download Description
The legendary food writer tells the poignant, personal story of her worldwide search for a Polish town's lost culture and the daily bread that sustained it.
A passion for bialys, those chewy crusty rolls with the toasted onion center, drew Mimi Sheraton to the Polish town of Bialystock to explore the history of this Jewish staple. Carefully wrapping, drying, and packing a dozen American bialys to ward off translation problems, she set off from New York in search of the people who invented this marvelous bread.
Instead, she found a place of utter desolation, where turn-of-the-century massacres, followed by the Holocaust, had reduced the number of Jewish residents there from fifty thousand to five.
Sheraton became a woman with a mission, traveling to Israel, Paris, Austin, Phoenix, Buenos Aires, and New York's Lower East Side to rescue the stories of the scattered Bialystokers. In a bittersweet mix of humor and pathos, she tells of their once vibrant culture and its cuisine, reviving the exiled memories of those who escaped to the corners of the earth with only their recollections, and one very important recipe, to cherish.
The Bialy Eaters transports readers to a lost world through its bakers' most beloved, and humble, offering. This tribute to the human spirit will also have as broad appeal as the bialy itself, delighting everyone who celebrates the astonishing endurance of the simplest traditions.
Customer Reviews:
A fun little history.......2007-01-10
We purchased this book because my daughter is doing a history project about bialys. This is a well-written book on a unique subject--a resource I certainly did not expect to find when we started searching for information. I enjoyed Sheraton's journey in search of the history of the bialy, as well as the "perfect" bialy.
Bialys, bialys, bialys!.......2005-02-05
There were a few things I really enjoyed about this book, as I found it both educational and enlightening when it discussed the various Jewish communities around the world, particularly in France and Argentina, as well as how completely devoid of Jews Bialystok has become. Her discussions about food and how they can trigger such powerful childhood memories were also insightful and thought provoking. However, the real jewels of this book were the conversations and letters with ex-Bialystokers, some of which could bring you to tears. Their memories of what once was bring home just how much was lost by the destruction of Jewish Eastern Europe by the Nazis and completed by the Communists, on a very personal, individual basis.
Now for the problems. As someone else mentioned, Sheraton did not visit any overseas locations until an expenses paid business trip provided her with the opportunity. I didn't find this so unusual, as traveling the world can be quite expensive. However, I found her not traveling to Australia since no one would pay for it to be more than a little strange, considering she was doing research for a book like this. However, it made for a better read in the end, as she spared us what I found were her often times tedious descriptions and asides of the places she visited and people she met. There were also paragraphs where she would be talking about one thing one minute, such as quoting one of her respondents and then abruptly change the subject, which oftentimes made for a jarring read. While her style of writing may work in magazine articles, it often failed to keep my attention and it was often marred by some awkward sentence structure, especially in her attempts at flowery prose.
Lastly, since the decision was made to include pictures in the book, I could have done with less description and more visuals, especially when it came to taking pictures of modern day Bialystok, as well as other cities and people she met and visited. And the pictures she did take, such as that of Bialys, were poorly taken, with no actual close-ups of the food itself, which there really should have been more of.
So while The Bialy Eaters may be an interesting and often educational personal exploration of a wonderful food (I'm particularly obsessed with Kossars' bialys) and a world that no longer exists, I expected so much more. But what is there is certainly worth reading, especially if you've ever eaten and loved a bialy.
Not By Bialies Alone.......2001-12-28
Mimi Sheraton's work about a special bread and the people who made it echoes her subject matter. The Bialy eaters is itself moist, crusty, sensual, and characterized by a depressed hole in its centers. The hole is not due to any shoddiness in Ms. Sheraton's craft; it is the loss of some 60,000 beautiful soles and their rich culture that is the underpainting of her fine portrait of a special bread.
Her doomed but dogged pilgrimage back to Bialystok, the source of the Bialy, is commendable for its integrity. Reading true, it involves a tale sadly too familiar for many of her readers, myself included. But it was her descriptions of bialies and pletzels, which I remember from my childhood in Baltimore, still warm from the baker's oven, that were the source of my lost night's sleep. I salivated and ruminated over the tastes and smells of my past. Sheraton shows shows how food is more than calories and carbs and taste and smell; it is also culture and history, art and, at its very best, a poetic expression of love. I can't wait to try the recipe.
It's not about the roll.......2001-11-10
Sheraton comes out with two statements that are on the surface contradictory: the best bialys (and the customs used to eat them) were from Bialystok, but the bialys she most enjoys are from the places she is most familiar (ie, Kossar's). For instance, even though every Bialystoker she encounters states that you absolutely do not split the roll open, she states that she still continues to do this because she finds it awkward not to. Fair enough. However, other variations of the bialy, such as the amount of onion used and the generosity of poppy seeds on top, she seems to feel are intolerable. And that's fine, too, because what she is really saying- and what just about everyone she interviews is saying- is that the bialy you love best is the bialy you grew up with. When all is said and done, it isn't about the specific recipe or food as much as it is about the past. The food you grew up with is one of the strongest links to your past. This is what Sheraton is really writing about; when the Bialystokers talk about how much they miss the bialy they grew up with and how inferior the modern versions are, what they are really mourning is the loss of the home they lived in. That the exact method of producing the bialy has been lost is just one more testament to the world that was destroyed in the Holocaust.
My mother went to visit my sister in New York recently, and I asked her to bring back some bialys. Surely the bialys in New York would be better than the bialys I eat here in Boston. Not even close. My bialy has definite merits over its New York counterpart (abundant onions and poppyseeds, huge and fat, not flat), but it wasn't simply that. My bialys are the ones I've grown accustomed to eating and remind me of the neighborhood I buy them in and the people I eat them with. I cannot imagine losing all of that, and every passage of this book that spoke about those losses brought tears to my eyes.
Read this book and fall in love with an old bread and a lost world.
A lovely and unusual work of nonfiction........2001-08-10
I grew up on Grand Street near Kossar's bialy bakery, and Ms. Sheraton comes close to making me taste those delicious breads once again. Her language is descriptive about food in much the same way that a good novelist makes you see something common differently through deft imagery. Unless you are a major nitpicker, you'll enjoy this gentle, respectful, and fun book. And if you haven't tasted a genuine bialy, on your next trip to NYC please do take a sidetrip to Grand and Essex and pick up a bag--onion, not garlic, for reasons the author addresses--fresh and warm out of the oven. In a world of mass-produced blandness, I can see why Ms. Sheraton wrote this book, seeking the secret behind something unique.
Average customer rating:
- Not One Wasted Page
- Fabulous Food Folklore
- Yummy for the Tummy
- Awesome
- Folksy shouldn't be dumb
|
Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking
Joseph Earl Dabney
Manufacturer: Cumberland House Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Middle Atlantic
| U.S. Regional
| Regional & International
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
South
| U.S. Regional
| Regional & International
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Food & Wine
| Wine
| Drinks & Beverages
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mythology
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery
-
The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing, Log Cabin Building, Mountain Crafts and Foods, Planting by the Signs, Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing, Moonshining
-
Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, And Recipes
-
Foxfire 2: Ghost Stories, Spring Wild Plant Foods, Spinning and Weaving, Midwifing, Burial Customs, Corn Shuckin's, Wagon Making and More Affairs of Plain Living
-
Foxfire 9 (Foxfire)
ASIN: 1581820046 |
Customer Reviews:
Not One Wasted Page.......2007-04-22
This book is filled-brimming with knowledge, page after page, and not one page is wasteful!
Filled with lore,
Filled with recipes.
My God, filled with information I couldn't believe existed!
Do you know what a syllabub is?
I did, we have an original syllabub, one that actually survived the Civil War. This cookbook describes in detail what they were used for, and the greatest of recipes for syllabub-the milk and wine mix.
This book is a history book, listing TRUE History!
How our ancestors ticked, and why you have that inclination to go back to those old traditional ways, because you have it in your genes, you are a descendant of these tough and true-grit individuals that fought and survived the most brutal of wars.
This book will make you proud, you won't be inclined to ever loan it out, because even if you let grandma borrow it, it probably won't be returned.
I forewarned you- don't loan it out!
Keep it, read it, and if tempted, just buy another one to loan, it's worth the price paid. Hurry now, before they read this review and decide to raise the cost! (too bad I couldn't make that smaller print)
Fabulous Food Folklore.......2006-08-07
Dabney captures the culinary culture of the Appalachians. Wonderful anecdotes and reminiscing carry the reader along. The Michie Tavern Apple Cobbler recipe is excellent (Almost like dining there again!). There is a factual error relating to Kentucky Burgoo. Dabney writes that this was first introduced to Kentucky by Col. Jaubert in 1810. Jaubert wasn't born until about 1840 according to census records and his grave marker. This error was no fault of the writer, though. Marion Flexner's 'Out of Kentucky Kitchens', which was sourced, also includes this error.
Yummy for the Tummy.......2004-06-16
Rose Houk went back to the Appalachian roots for these recipes.
Opossum, "take one opossum and slow cook him to get the fat out." Then she describes the people's stories how during the winter you might not have much more than a squirrel for meat.
I got a sense of the bravery and strength of character of the mountain people when they grew their own food during hard times and good times. Their meals reminded me of a simpler time when large families worked their land and survived together.
Besides all that, her story telling made me laugh.
Awesome.......2004-01-10
All I can say is this book is AWESOME. You must get it. I have never seen such quality, and old time cooking, and history wrapped up in one cookbook like this. I wish there were more books like this one. If we don't write down the knowledge these people had, and how they survived, and lived...we are making a tragic mistake. I cannot wait to start making some of the food listed from their recipes! I just saw this book last night at a bookstore in town. Don't hesitate to get this book, you won't be sorry.
Folksy shouldn't be dumb.......2003-12-27
The author of this folksy, breezy book is obviously in love with his subject. Unfortunately, he sometimes does not seem to know what he's writing about. On page 189 with a photo of hams hanging hock up, he quotes a mountain sage who says hams should be 'hung with the hocks down', but apparently does not notice the discrepancy. Five pages later he gives his 'modern update' to a traditional recipe: boil ham in water in a deep pan (not a pressure cooker) at 300 degrees. Funny, I can't get my boiling water above 212 degrees. Although he has a deep love of the subject, he does not appear to have a deep knowledge. There are many examples of inconsistencies. On page 313 and following, he describes a mountain personage Aggie Ross Lossiah and then on page 327 and following, he describes the same person, but calls her Angie Ross Lossiah. (These are not just typos; at each place he uses the name multiple times.) In the chapter on sorghum syrup, he says 'it is known in the mountains as "long sweetenin'." This is in contrast to "short sweetenin'" -- refined sugar.' Then in the chapter on honey, he says 'honey was considered the much-loved mountain "long sweetening" while sorghum was "short sweetening".'
The main purpose of the recipes in the book seem for entertainment. Many are cute, but most are either trivial and obvious, or else carelessly presented; for example, a recipe for blackberry dumplings calls for four ingredients: 1 qt blackberries, 1 1/4 c sugar, 2 c water, and "Berry mix". I have not figured out where to get the "Berry mix" (is that a commercial product?) or when to add it -- it was not mentioned in the directions. Also, there's that problem of boiling water at 300 degrees. Nevertheless, I found the book enjoyable and evocative of my own experiences in and with the people of the Southern Appalachians.
Book Description
Each October, as the Day of the Dead draws near, Mexican markets overflow with decorated breads, fanciful paper cutouts, and whimsical toy skulls and skeletons. To honor deceased relatives, Mexicans decorate graves and erect home altars. Drawing on a rich array of historical and ethnographic evidence, this volume reveals the origin and changing character of this celebrated holiday. It explores the emergence of the Day of the Dead as a symbol of Mexican and Mexican-American national identity.Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead poses a serious challenge to the widespread stereotype of the morbid Mexican, unafraid of death, and obsessed with dying. In fact, the Day of the Dead, as shown here, is a powerful affirmation of life and creativity. Beautifully illustrated, this book is essential for anyone interested in Mexican culture, art, and folklore, as well as contemporary globalization and identity formation.
Book Description
A sweeping analysis of California's agrarian history from 1850 to the present.
For over a century, California has been the world's most advanced agricultural zone, an agrarian juggernaut that not only outproduces every state in America, but also most countries. California's success, however, has come at significant costs. Never a family-farm region like the Midwest, California's landscape and Mediterranean climate have been manipulated and exploited to serve modern business interests. Home to gargantuan accomplishments such as the world's largest water storage and transfer network, California also relies on an army of Mexican farm laborers who live and work under dismal conditions.
In The Conquest of Bread, acclaimed historian Richard A. Walker offers a wide-angle overview of the agro-industrial system of production in California from farm to table. He lays bare the long evolution of each link in the food chain, showing how a persistent emphasis on productivity and growth allowed California to outpace agriculture elsewhere in the United States. Full of thunder and surprises, The Conquest of Bread allows the reader to weigh the claims of both boosters and critics in the debate over the most extraordinary agricultural profusion in the modern world.
Customer Reviews:
stunningly comprehensive.......2005-06-14
The Conquest of Bread will make compelling reading for anyone interested in California and its history, the history of agriculture, or simply how society works. For Walker, the answers are not to be found in the intersects of supply and demand curves and neo-liberal theory, supposedly applicable to every time and place, but rather in how particular classes, groups, and social forces have come together over the last 150 years to produce California agribusiness, a social phenomenon as staggering in its success and productivity as it is in its levels of human exploitation and environmental degradation.
a strong argument against academic tenure.......2005-01-21
Here is an educated man, isolated from peer review, re-warming ancient, pointless Populist ideas about a subject he knows only by association. Without the bulwark of tenure, he could have been challenged to have written something less formulaic and outdated.
What is more the pity is that he cares about his subject; he is just not used to having to defend his ideas, so he just comes off as a boring, monomoniacal old professor. One without an editor.
Book Description
Told here for the first time, the riveting story of the most remarkable strike in American history
On January 12, 1912, an army of textile workers stormed out of the mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, commencing what has since become known as the “Bread and Roses” strike. Based on newspaper accounts, magazine reportage, and oral histories, Watson reconstructs a Dickensian drama involving thousands of parading strikers from fifty-one nations, unforgettable acts of cruelty, and even a protracted murder trial that tested the boundaries of free speech. A rousing look at a seminal and overlooked chapter of the past, Bread and Roses is indispensable reading.
Customer Reviews:
the hobo philosopher.......2007-08-22
I was raised in Lawrence. My grandmother was a polish immigrant weaver at the Wood Mill and my grandfather was an Irish plant foreman at the Arlington Mills as was my father. I have been reading and researching Lawrence for some time. In fact in my book about growing up in Lawrence "A Summer with Charlie" now listed on Amazon, I include a short synopsis of the Strike of 1912. When I saw Mr. Watson's book advertised, I had to have it. He did an excellent job as did Mr. Moran on "The Belles of New England". If you really want some fun books about Lawrence get Images of America, Lawrence Massachusetts by Ken Skulski and friends. These are two volumes full of old pictures and descriptions of good old Lawrence. Whenever I get nostalgic and lonely for the old days and the good times I go over and start browsing through one of these volumes.
Bruce Watson's book is much the same - I loved walking with the strikers up and down all those familiar streets and learning about the history of my old hometown. This book should be a required reading at Lawrence High and Central Catholic, that's for sure.
History Lesson.......2006-08-16
I grew up in Lawrence and had several members of my family work in the woolen mills....
Although the strike was not talked about, I was very aware of how hard the work was and how much sacrifice was made by each family.
Sadly, the history of the strike was not taught in our classrooms - I strongly believe that it is as relevant today..... I urge everyone to read this book and to take it to your heart. Bruce Watson did an extraordinary job presenting this story.
I always was and always will be proud to be a member of one of those hardworking immigrant families.....and continue to be proud to have been raised in Lawrence.
Where's the movie? .......2006-06-07
This is a surprisingly exciting read. A 10 star book, at least. I can't imagine this history being told better although I don't know what others have written about this strike, other than a brief reference from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). Watson captures the importance of the IWW to this strike but also shows the great problems that the IWW had in holding on to the strikers after the strike ended.
So much detail but it flows so well. Watson seems to largely let the details tell the story rather than editorialize. This is history with the emphasis on history and not salesmanship. This is effectively a "you are there" episode accomplished in text.
What motivated Bruce Watson to do such exceptional work? I suspect that, unlike the author of "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, And Got a Life", Bruce Watson did not get anything like a $500,000 advance for "Bread and Roses". We need more people like Bruce Watson. And more money directed to support them: so buy this book!
So much about U.S. History I'm ignorant of. That a Kansas Socialist newspaper was our most popular weekly. That the IWW, afer having so much success in Lawrence, would be nearly crushed by the federal government. That one young man of the IWW, Joseph Ettor, would have such a profound influence of the Lawrence strike but die largely forgotten. That so many women would play important roles in a strike at this time. That within a year of the 1912 strike, the Lawrence strikers would be in denial as the IWW membership in their city plummeted: but there was a lasting impact on the strike on wages and working conditions in other cities, afraid of what the IWW and people of Lawrence had done.
The strike went from just Jan 12, 1912 to March 14 of the same year. But so much happened that it is amazing Watson was able to present it all clearly.
Imagine that after holding to such a hard position in 1912, the mill owner William Wood, would, about seven years later give his employees insurance, maternity benefits, sick pay, help them buy homes, provide English lessons. Yet die by suicide within another decade after losing his children.
These are powerful facts powerfully presented. At a time when globalism is weakening labor in the U.S. and everywhere else in the world, it seems worthwhile to learn what people did. And don't forget what Bruce Watson has done, by bringing that event to life again.
A Moving Story, Wonderfully Documented .......2006-03-21
What can I add to the laudatory reviews that have already appreared about this excellent work? Bruce Watson has done a masterful job of presenting this important (though often forgotten) episode in American history in a moving and engaging manner. This book should be welcomed by serious scholars and casual readers alike. Watson's style is intelligent and straightforward, but he is also a seasoned storyteller, who is able to open our eyes to the unmistakble human story behind these historical events. We never lose sight of the human faces on both sides of the strike lines here, for better or for worse. Watson's sympathies are obviously with the destitute and downtrodden workers of Lawrence. But his tone is never shrill or partisan, and his documentation is first rate-- thorough and meticulous almost to a fault (Do we really need ALL of these footnotes? Probably so.) We too often forget at what a high price our "American dream" was purchased. How much less prosperous and comfortable our lives would be had earlier generations not dared to stand up to the powers that be. Watson does a wonderful job of reminding us of the price that those who came before us have paid-- and of our need to continue their battle for justice in our own time.
A striking piece of labor history!.......2006-02-13
Having grown up in Lawrence, I enjoyed reading this account of the strike and the bravery of the strikers. Mr. Watson does an admirable job in presenting the evidence and I highly recommend this book.
However, I would like to caution reviewers such as J. Windsor of Seattle, WA who claim that the Lawrence strike occurred during `free market' conditions. This is an erroneous statement; but the reviewer is not alone in thinking that the Robber Barron era was a period of free markets. U.S. style capitalism has little to do with free markets and everything with maintaining elite privilege.
The U.S. has had a regulated economy since at least Alexander Hamilton's time, who argued for a National Bank and a commitment to economic growth through protectionist tariffs, subsidies to industry, and other measures recommended in his Report on Manufactures to the U.S. Congress.
The so-called Robber Baron era was no different with capitalists receiving state interventions in various ways.
The symbiosis between the state and capital can be illustration by such pieces of federal legislation as the Copyright Act, the Indian Removal Act, the Pacific Railway Act, the McKinley tariff, and the Federal Reserve Act.
The lesson is not more state regulations to help workers. Rather, it is to do away with the state since capitalism would not function without it and vice versa.
Average customer rating:
- Should be Turned into a Video Documentary!
- Rini Family Best Seller
- Excellent regional/ethnic history
|
Bread and Respect: The Italians of Louisiana
Anthony V. Margavio , and
Jerome J. Salomone
Manufacturer: Pelican Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Louisiana
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Midwest
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Emigration & Immigration
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Ethnic Studies
| Special Groups
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Special Groups
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1589800230 |
Customer Reviews:
Should be Turned into a Video Documentary!.......2004-07-22
Margavio and Salomone's enlightening masterpiece chronicles the history of Italian-Americans who immigrated to Southeastern Louisiana during the late 1800's, where they were not welcomed warmly. The title "Bread and Respect" refers to the two main goals of this group of immigrants, whose plight has been ignored in popular and educational literature in favor of examinations of the Italian immigrants who established homes in New York and Boston. Unfortunately, such examinations of Italian immigrants to the Northeastern U.S. are often disseminated to the masses as works of fiction that are woven from some realistic elements (ie: the Godfather). This book, on the other hand, is an objective examination of a group of immigrants who endured the predjudices of an entire state and managed to carve their culture into the heart of New Orleans.
For entertainment value alone, this book should be turned into a filmed documentary. Margarvio and Salomone take us through several vignettes that are, in and of themselves, indicative of real life sucess stories. These case studies, if you will, illustrate the pains and triumphs of an immigrant group that fell prey to mass lynchings and false accusations in the 1890's. There is a little known fact that the treatment of Italian immigrants in Lousiana almost led to the brink of war with Italy, prompting King Umberto to recall his diplomats to the U.S..
Moreover, the educational value of such an anthropological study is priceless. I am not suprised by the reviewer who states her family's astonishment over the fact that there were massive groups of Italian immigrants in Louisiana. Recently, an associate of mine from North Boston, seemed to be in awe of this fact saying "I didn't know there were THAT many Italians in Louisiana...I thought they all went to Boston and New York". I was not suprised by these comments, having recently read George Takaki's "A Different Mirror", an acclaimed study of ethnic groups in America, which makes no mention of the plight of Italians in Louisiana.
There were not only Italians who immigrated to Louisiana, but their story is the story of a true hard-fought battle. That story is chronicled in "Bread and Respect". This book should be required reading for every upper-level Anthropology and Sociology student in the United States.
Rini Family Best Seller.......2004-01-15
I was looking for a gift for my Dad's birthday in July, and I saw this title recommended on OSIA's website. I ordered a copy for my Dad and myself. After I finished my copy I left it with my Uncle to read. My Dad an my Uncle have been telling all our family about THE BOOK. I was actually in LA & my Dad introduced me to his cousins by saying SHE'S THE ONE THAT FOUND THE BOOK. Dad and all his relatives can't stop talking about it. I grew up in Maryland and it was interesting to me from a historical and cultural perspective about my roots. I remember hearing my parents and grandparents talk about the people and places. It was interesting listening to my Dad & his family who grew up in New Orleans talk about the book, because they not only knew the people but it seems like they were related to them or had a relative who was; they had been to the places described; and they or their parents had been involved in many of the events. It provides a wonderful family history for me to pass down to my daughter.
Excellent regional/ethnic history.......2002-11-20
About 70,000 Italians entered the Port of New Orleans in the first thirty years of the 20th century, most of them in response to widespread poverty in Sicily and the demand for labor among Louisiana planters. Land ownership was rare in Sicily and conditions were crowded and unpleasant in the northeastern urban slums of the U.S., but in Louisiana the immigrants settled mostly in rural areas and quickly became the principal food producers for the state. They often were not welcomed, however, by those who came before, as in the infamous lynching of a dozen Italians who had been arrested but not charged following the murder of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessey in October, 1890. Margavio and Salomone, both professors of sociology, have done an excellent job in depicting the gradual assimilation of Italians and their culture, from muffalettas and Roman Candy in New Orleans to Nick La Rocca's Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the activities of the Societa Italiana di Mutua Beneficenza Cefautana. There are today hundreds of thousands of Italian-Americans living in Louisiana and this book should be of interest to most of them.
Average customer rating:
|
CCEL Classics CD: works by Saint Augustine, John Calvin, John Donne, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, Martin Luther, Saint Teresa of Avila, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley, and more!
Dr. W. Harry Plantinga
Manufacturer: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM
Mariology
| Catholicism
| Christianity
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Christianity
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
Luther, Martin
| ( L )
| People, A-Z
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Augustine, Saint
| ( A )
| People, A-Z
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1931848076
Release Date: 2006-12-15 |
Product Description
The most important spiritual writings of Christian history are available on this Classics CD by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) at Calvin College. It contains 118 Christian classics, including three versions of the Bible, several commentaries, Bible dictionaries, readings, spiritual guides, sermons, poems and journals -- all in a convenient, searchable form. Books are available in HTML and PDF formats. The easy-to-use CCEL Desktop software powering the CD enables users to browse and print books and install additional books from the Web. The top-of-class search engine can search for words or phrases in books, in authors works or in the whole library. In addition, it can search for dictionary definitions of words and commentary or references to scripture passages. The interface is a Web browser. The CD is compatible with Windows 2000+, Macintosh 10.3+, and most Linux versions.
Books:
- The Big Book of Breasts
- The Chinese Brush Painting Bible: Over 200 Motifs With Step-by-Step Illustrated Instructions
- The Doubtful Guest
- The Draw 50 Way: How to Draw Cats, Puppies, Horses, Buildings, Birds, Aliens, Boats, Trains and Everything Else Under the Sun (Draw 50)
- The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Dealing with Dragons / Searching for Dragons / Calling on Dragons / Talking to Dragons
- The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes
- The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes
- The Graphic Standards Guide to Architectural Finishes: Using MASTERSPEC to Evaluate, Select, and Specify Materials
- The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies
- The Human Mosaic
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- NorCalMod: Icons of Northern California Modernism
- History: Fiction or Science
- Career Management for Chemists
- Enemy Women: A Novel
- History: Fiction or Science
- History: Fiction or Science
- Felicidad De Mexico
- On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking and Metalwork
- Creators of life: A history of animation
- Roadside wildflowers of New Mexico
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
The Water Will Hold You: A Skeptic Learns to Pray
Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith
A Wing and a Prayer: A Message of Faith and Hope
Changing Light: A Novel
