Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!

Sandor Katz is a self-described fermentation fetishist. His fermentation explorations developed out of overlapping interests in cooking, nutrition and gardening. He is also an herbalist and an activist and a writer and a builder and a craftsperson and a bicyclist and many other things: a generalist. He is a resident steward of Short Mountain Sanctuary, a queer intentional community deep in the wooded hills of Tennessee. Katz is a native of New York City, a graduate of Brown University, and a former urban planner and policy analyst. He has been living with AIDS for more than a decade and considers fermented foods an important part of his healing. (from Sandor's official biography, circa 2003)

You can pre-order the incredible Art of Fermentation, Sandor’s newest title, at the bottom of this page.

“Sandor Katz has already awakened more people to the diversity and deliciousness of fermented foods than any other single person has over the last century. Once you look at the world through the fresh eyes of such a genius, there is no going back to the tasteless world you had previously occupied. The Art of Fermentation is a wonder—so rich in its knowledge and so practical in its application. This book will be a classic for the next millennium.” —Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Renewing America’s Food Traditions and Desert Terroir

I first saw the beautiful cover of Wild Fermentation at the Sunnewald Health Food Store in York, PA back in 2003 on a visit to hoop house guru Steve Moore (the Real Steve Moore). A stronghold of Weston A Price philosophy, the staff and customers of Sunnewald were gaga over the new book. I picked up a copy. It blew my mind. It was truly revolutionary. A carefully detailed  return to our own culinary history. An important stepping stone to true traditional nutrition.

In August of 2004 I asked Sandor to give a fermentation workshop in Shepherdstown, which, as far as I know, was one of he first he did outside of his own community. Sandor arrived just before the workshop in a small pickup that was just crammed with jugs, bottles and crocks, all of which would prove to be filled with amazingly good tasting fermented foods.  I think Sandor wondered what he had gotten himself into when we first met before the workshop since I’m one of those really straight looking farmers, you know, like William S. Burroughs, but within minutes we realized we had a common friend in the great Tennessee  barefoot biodynamic farmer, Jeff Poppen. Once we knew that, there was not doubt that we were on the same page: dedicated to saving the Earth and the people living on it.

I was able to help get Sandor a speaking engagement at the ACRES USA conference that year. I don’t think that anyone on the ACRES staff  had actually read Sandors biography before the conference actually began. There was a little resentment that I had apparently crashed this mid-western eco-ag conference by introducing a truly counter culture figure to the podium. No worries. The WAPF members at ACRES already knew Sandor by his work and those who didn’t were completely knocked out by how easy and important  to do the art of fermentation is when presented by him.

Once you’ve listened to or read Sandor Katz on fermentation, there’s never again a reason to be afraid of killing yourself with home fermentation. From that point on, It’s All Good!

The amazing thing about Sandor is his openess and his generosity. He’s not a salesman, he’s activist. When he gives you the gift of his wisdom, it’s not to get something back from you, it’s in the hope that you will take what he’s shares and share it with 10 more people. Keep the food revolution moving.

As Sally Fallon said in her review of Wild Fermentation in the WAPF journal, Wild Fermentation is more than   a collection of interesting recipes. It's an awknowledgement of the "insidious processes of globalization, commodification and cultural homogenization."

Sandor has said, "We cannot resist the homogenization of culture by overpowering it. Yet we must not resign ourselves to it. . . . . Resistance takes place on many planes. Occasionally it can be dramatic and public, but most of the decisions we are faced with are mundane and private. What to eat is a choice that we make several times a day, if we are lucky. The cumulative choices we make about food have profound implications."

Weston A Price Foundation's formula for defeating the forces of industrialization in agriculture and food production is to drink raw milk.  Another way, according to WAPF founder, Sally Fallon,  "Is to eat fermented foods! Authentic fermented condiments and beverages  not only return beneficial microorganisms to your digestive tract, they will also help return our wealth to small farms and local communities. Instead of "trickle down," how about "bubble up," where real wealth produced by farmers and artisans leavens the whole mass.

"Fermented foods are good for our interior ecology and they can help restore our exterior ecology as well, by increasing the demand for organic foods (only nutrient-dense and pesticide-free foods ferment successfully) and weakening the grip of the food processing industry.

When Edward eats the witch's food in the children's classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he becomes her slave. So too, when we eat processed foods, we become slaves to the commodity economy. But foods made by magicians working with the mysterious ferments of the microscopic world-these foods make us healthy and free. Wild Fermentation will serve as a training manual for thousands of culinary Harry Potters, working their magic in the tranquil atmosphere of sacred kitchens."

Such is the powerful and yet benign nature of Sandor Katz’ food revolution.

from Chelsea Green:

Sandor Ellix Katz is a self-taught fermentation experimentalist. He wrote
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods—
which Newsweek called “the fermenting bible”—in order to share the
fermentation wisdom he had learned, and demystify home fermentation.
Since the book’s publication in 2003, Katz has taught hundreds of
fermentation workshops across North America and beyond, taking on a role
he describes as a “fermentation revivalist.” Now, in The Art of Fermentation,
with a decade more experience behind him, the unique opportunity to hear
countless stories about fermentation practices, and answering thousands of
troubleshooting questions, he’s sharing a more in-depth exploration of the
topic.

Download the Sandor Katz Podcast here

Listen to it in your browser below:

RESOURCES

Sandor Katz’ informative personal website is here
Tons of free information on Sandor and fermentation at the Chelsea Green site,here

The Art of Fermentation

An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes From Around the World

By Sandor Ellix Katz
Foreword by Michael Pollan
Pub Date: June 12, 2012
With practical information on fermenting vegetables,fruits, grains, milk, beans, meats, and more…
Fermentation revivalist Sandor Katz has inspired countless thousands to rediscover the ancient art of fermentation, and with The Art of Fermentation he offers the most comprehensive and definitive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever
published.
Katz presents the history, concepts, and processes behind
fermentation in ways simple enough to guide a reader through
their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, yet in-depth
enough to provide greater understanding and insight for
experienced fermentos.
Readers will find detailed information on fermenting vegetables;
sugars into alcohol (meads, wines, and ciders); sour tonic
beverages; milk; grains and starchy tubers; beers (and other
grain-based alcoholic beverages); beans; seeds; fish; meat;
and eggs, as well as growing mold cultures, and using fermentation in agriculture, art, and energy production, and commerce.
The first-ever guide of its kind, Katz has written what will undoubtedly become a foundational book in food literature.

Read praise for this book
“The Art of Fermentation is much more than a cookbook…Sure, it tells you how to
do it, but much more important, it tells you what it means, and why an act as
quotidian and practical as making your own sauerkraut represents nothing less
than a way of engaging with the world. Or rather, with several different worlds, each
nested inside the other: the invisible world of fungi and bacteria; the community in
which you live; and the industrial food system that is undermining the health of our
bodies and the land. This might seem like a large claim for a crock of sauerkraut,
but Sandor Katz’s signal achievement in this book is to convince you of its truth.
To ferment your own food is to lodge an eloquent protest—of the senses—against
the homogenization of flavors and food experiences now rolling like a great,
undifferentiated lawn across the globe. It is also a declaration of independence
from an economy that would much prefer we were all passive consumers of its
commodities, rather than creators of unique products expressive of ourselves and
the places where we live.”
—Michael Pollan, from the Foreword

Michael Phillips, author of The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way

Michael Phillips is a farmer, writer, carpenter, orchard consultant, and speaker who lives with his wife, Nancy, and daughter, Grace, on Heartsong Farm in northern new Hampshire, where they grow apples and a variety of medicinal herbs. Michael authored The Apple Grower (Chelsea Green 2005) and teamed up with Nancy to write The Herbalist’s Way(Chelsea Green 2005). His Lost Nation Orchard is part of a diversified mountain farm in northern New Hampshire, and he also leads the community orchard movement at www.GrowOrganicApples.com

Download the podcast directly here

Download from iTunes here

The Holistic Orchard
Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way
by Michael Phillips

Harvey Ussery, author of "The Small Scale Poultry Flock"

COMING SOON!

No other book on raising poultry takes an entirely whole-systems approach, or discusses producing homegrown feed and breeding in such detail—it is truly an invaluable and groundbreaking guide that will lead farmers and homesteaders into a new world of self-reliance and enjoyment.– Chelsea Press

Harvey Ussery has been developing his whole-systems poultry husbandry for decades and has been writing about chickens and other fowl for Backyard Poultry since the inception of the magazine in early 2006. He has also written numerous articles for Mother Earth News and Countryside & Small Stock Journal, and has published in American Pastured Poultry Producers Association’s newsletter, Grit!, over the years. Ussery has presented at national and local events on poultry, homesteading, and energy and sustainability issues, and maintains a highly informative website, TheModernHomestead.US. He lives with his wife, Ellen, in Virginia.

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock
An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers
By Harvey Ussery
Foreword by Joel Salatin
Pub Date: October, 2011
At last, longtime farmer Harvey Ussery has created the most
comprehensive and definitive guide to date on raising allnatural
poultry for the homesteader and small farmer. His new
book, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, offers a practical and
integrative model for working with chickens and other
domestic fowl, based entirely on natural systems.
Ussery’s model presents an entirely sustainable system that
can be adapted and utilized in a variety of scales, and will
prove invaluable for beginner homesteaders, growers
looking to incorporate poultry into their farm, or farmers
seeking to close their loop, including extensive information
on:
• Formulating and making your own feed
• How to breed and brood the flock (for breed improvement and for genetic conservation), including the most complete guide to working with broody hens available anywhere
• Providing more of the flock’s feed from sources grown or
self-foraged, including production of live protein feeds using earthworms and soldier grubs
• Using poultry to increase soil fertility, control crop damaging insects, and to make compost—
including systems for pasturing and tillage of cover crops and weeds
• And one of the best step-by-step poultry butchering guides available, complete with extensive illustrative photos.
No other book on raising poultry takes an entirely whole-systems approach, or discusses producing homegrown feed and breeding in such detail—it is truly an invaluable and groundbreaking guide that will lead farmers and homesteaders into a new world of self-reliance and enjoyment.

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock
An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers

With information on building soil fertility, replacing purchased feed, and working with poultry in the garden.

The most comprehensive guide to date on raising organic poultry for the backyard farmer, homesteader, and professional grower. Harvey Ussery offers a comprehensive and practical whole-systems, integrative approach to animal husbandry, including growing your own feed, brooding at home, and poultry as weed managers in the garden

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock
An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers
by Harvey Ussery
Foreword by Joel Salatin
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part One: Getting Started
Chapter 1. Why Bother?
Chapter 2. The Integrated Small-Scale Flock
Chapter 3. Your Basic Bird
Chapter 4. Planning the Flock
Chapter 5. Starting the Flock

Part Two: Basic Care
Chapter 6. Housing
Chapter 7. Manure Management in the Poultry House: The Joys of Deep Litter
Chapter 8. Watering
Chapter 9. Pasturing the Flock
Chapter 10. Managing the Pastured Flock Using Electronet
Chapter 11. Mobile Shelters

Part Three: Working Partners
Chapter 12. Putting the Flock to Work
Chapter 13. Chickens in the Garden
Chapter 14. A Question of Balance

Part Four: Feeding the Small-Scale Flock
Chapter 15. Thoughts on Feeding
Chapter 16. Purchased Feeds
Chapter 17. Making Our Own Feeds
Chapter 18. Feeding the Flock from Home Resources
Chapter 19. Cultivating Recomposers for Poultry Feed

Part Five: Other Management Issues
Chapter 20. One Big Happy Family
Chapter 21. Protecting the Flock from Predators
Chapter 22. Helping the Flock Stay Healthy
Chapter 23. Managing the Winter Flock
Chapter 24. Other Domestic Fowl

Part Six: Breeding the Small-Scale Flock
Chapter 25. Breeding for Conservation and Breed Improvement
Chapter 26. Managing the Breeding Season
Chapter 27. Working with Broody Hens

Part Seven: Poultry for the Table
Chapter 28. Butchering Poultry
Chapter 29. Poultry in the Kitchen
Chapter 30. Serving Small Local Markets

Epilogue: The Big Picture
Appendixes
Appendix A: Making Trap Nests
Appendix B: Making a Dustbox
Appendix C: Making a Mobile A-Frame Shelter
Appendix D: Duck Confit, Convenience Food Extraordinaire
Appendix E: A Feed Formulation Spreadsheet
Appendix F: Spreadsheets for Tracking Egg and Broiler Costs and Profits
Appendix G: Natural Eggs and Industrial Eggs Compared
Appendix H: Resources
Glossary
Index
About the Author

Dr Rob Dunn, evolutionary biologist and author of "The Wildlife of Our Bodies"

We came to Rob Dunn and his astounding book through Dr Al Kapuler’s (See BDNow! Podcast episode 3) enthusiastic recommendations. Dr Dunn makes it pretty clear that our bodies are ‘who we are’ and our minds are ‘who we think we are.’ While our minds have evolved to live in the 21st century, our bodies are pretty much stuck at the point they were in evolution before the neolithic, before civilization. Our mind’s recent requirement for ‘cleanliness’ is denying our old fashion bodies of many of the synergies we co-evolved with. Dr. Kapuler was very impressed by how Dr Dunn explains that our ancestors’ experiences with saber-toothed tigers still colors our psyche and explains much of our current foreign policy. Dr Dunn’s explanations on how a host of modern ailments, such as Chrone’s disease and many allergies, are probably due to the absence of parasites in our bowels. More to the point, he encourages us to “re-Wild” our insides for better health and performance here in the sterilized and monocropped 21st century.

You Can Download this Podcast here

You Can Download this Podcast from ITunes here

You can listen to it here

 
from the publisher:
A biologist shows the influence of wild species on our well-being and the world and how nature still clings to us—and always will.

We evolved in a wilderness of parasites, mutualists, and pathogens, but we no longer see ourselves as being part of nature and the broader community of life. In the name of progress and clean living, we scrub much of nature off our bodies and try to remove whole kinds of life—parasites, bacteria, mutualists, and predators—to allow ourselves to live free of wild danger. Nature, in this new world, is the landscape outside, a kind of living painting that is pleasant to contemplate but nice to have escaped.

The truth, though, according to biologist Rob Dunn, is that while “clean living” has benefited us in some ways, it has also made us sicker in others. We are trapped in bodies that evolved to deal with the dependable presence of hundreds of other species. As Dunn reveals, our modern disconnect from the web of life has resulted in unprecedented effects that immunologists, evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and other scientists are only beginning to understand. Diabetes, autism, allergies, many anxiety disorders, autoimmune diseases, and even tooth, jaw, and vision problems are increasingly plaguing bodies that have been removed from the ecological context in which they existed for millennia.

In this eye-opening, thoroughly researched, and well-reasoned book, Dunn considers the crossroads at which we find ourselves. Through the stories of visionaries, Dunn argues that we can create a richer nature, one in which we choose to surround ourselves with species that benefit us, not just those that, despite us, survive.

Rob Dunn is an assistant professor in the department of zoology at the North Carolina State University, as well as an up-and-coming science popularizer. His work appears in Natural History, Scientific American, BBC Wildlife, and Seed magazines. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

www.amazon.co.uk

Filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia, creator of Symphony of the Soil

Healthy Soil  = Healthy Plants = Healthy Animals and Humans

The World Premier of Deborah Koons Garcia’s (The Future of Food) long awaited film, Symphony of the Soil, is 4pm Sunday March 25, 2012 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Theater. It is being shown as part of the DC Environmental Film Festival. (Find more information here )

If you’re reading this before March 25, and you’re in the DC-area, please make it out to this free event to show Debroah Koons Garcia that DC food community values films like this. A high turn out to this wonderful film will convince the DC Environmental Film Festival that there is a strong interest in films about food and agriculture. (And this is a good one!)

Download Podcast from iTunes (Subscribe to Podcast at iTunes)

SYMPHONY OF THE SOIL (USA, 2012, 103 min.)
World Premiere Drawing on ancient knowledge and cutting edge science, Symphony of the Soil is an artistic exploration of the miraculous substance that is soil. By understanding the elaborate connections and mutuality between soil, water, the atmosphere, plants and animals, we come to appreciate the complex and dynamic nature of this precious resource. The film also examines our human relationship with soil, including the use and misuse of soil in agriculture, deforestation and development, and the latest scientific research on soil’s key role in ameliorating the most challenging environmental issues of our time. Filmed on four continents, featuring esteemed scientists and working farmers and ranchers, Symphony of the Soil is an intriguing presentation that highlights the role of healthy soil in creating healthy plants that nurture healthy humans living on a healthy planet. Written, directed and produced by Deborah Koons Garcia. Produced by Lily Films. (from the DC Environmental Film Festival write-up here )

SYMPHONY OF THE SOIL: A Multi-Film Project by Deborah Koons Garcia

for more information about this film  www.symphonyofthesoil.com

OVERVIEW

Symphony of the Soil is a 103-minute documentary feature film that explores the complexity and mystery of soil. Filmed on four continents and sharing the voices of some of the world’s most esteemed soil scientists, farmers and activists, the film portrays soil as a protagonist of our planetary story. Using a captivating mix of art and science, the film shows that soil is a complex living organism, the foundation of life on earth. Yet most people are soil-blind and “treat soil like dirt.” Through the knowledge and wisdom revealed in this film, we can come to respect, even revere, this miraculous substance, and appreciate that treating the soil right can help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems. In addition to the feature film, there are several short films, Sonatas of the Soil, that delve deeply into soil-related topics, and several short clips, Grace Notes, that are available to stream on the film’s website.

PRESS RELEASE

Mill Valley, California…Symphony of the Soil will premiere at the March 2012 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital. It is the most recent film from filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia, best known for her internationally acclaimed 2004 film, The Future of Food. The Future of Food premiered at Film Forum in New York and has screened widely around the world in theaters, film, food and farming festivals and conferences and in community screenings on every continent, including in India, Kenya, Bulgaria, Brazil and Indonesia.

DETAILED SYNOPSIS.
The first third of Symphony of the Soil is devoted to soil science: the birth of soil, the life cycle of soil, the physical components of soil, the soil orders, the microorganisms that cycle nutrients, soil and plants, and interrelationship of the many members of the soil community, including humans. By delving deeply into soil science with hands-on and charismatic soil scientists, viewers will develop an interest in, and fascination with, this miraculous substance.

Soil science is increasingly cutting edge and relevant. Because of advances in technology like electron microscopes and satellite images, we can examine this diverse material in ever greater detail. Soil is alive, and its health and survival are intricately connected to that of all life. A sampling of what we see in this first section includes: a visit to the glaciers of Norway with Dr Ignacio Chapela of UC Berkeley; an exploration with Dr. Peter Vitousek of Stanford University of an active volcano in Hawaii and the soil that develops from its tephra, ranging from 50 year old soil to 4 million year old soil; Dr John Reganold shows us some of the most fertile land in the world, the Palouse of Washington State; Dr Elaine Ingham enthuses about the billions of organisms that create the cycles of fertility in soil. The film includes hand painted animation to explain various processes such as photosynthesis and the nitrogen cycle.

The second third of the film focuses on our human relationship with soil, especially our use of soil as an agricultural medium. This section begins with Patrick Holden, longtime director of the Soil Association in the U.K., standing in his fields in Wales, declaring that agriculture is a “dance with nature.” We visit farmers and scientists who eloquently explain why we must give back to the soil, returning to it what we take out in the form of crops, a concept that is known as Sir Albert Howard’s “Law of Return.”

Various wholesome farming practices are explored: to till or not to till; composting; cover crops – - the value of legumes to replenish nitrogen to the soil; and crop rotation. We are exposed to a variety of farming systems such as organic agriculture, permaculture, and Biodynamic farming. At the Rodale Institute, we see their 30-year field trials comparing industrial practices with organic methods and learn how soil with organic matter in it vastly improves water use. MacArthur Fellow Dr. David Montgomery leads us through a history of agriculture and the use and misuse of soil through the ages. Peter Segger and Ann Evans in Wales and Warren Weber, founder of Star Route Farms, the first certified organic farm in California, tell us about their evolving techniques for enhancing soil fertility. Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm in California talks about the value of animals on the farm. In India, Jaspal Singh Chattha, a Biodynamic farmer in the Punjab, shares the “art of making compost” and how he has regenerated his land after the ravages of the Green Revolution. Dr Michael Hansen of Consumers Union and Dr. Warren Porter of University of Wisconsin report the latest science about the dangerous environmental and health effects of the toxic chemicals and nitrates so prevalent in industrial farming today. This section also covers such topics as biofuels, genetic engineering and overuse of nitrogen, as well as the crucial role soil plays in sequestering carbon.

The third section of the film explores Big Picture ideas such as soil and climate change, water use, health and a variety of other topics that support the case for treating soil with care..

For example, Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture explains how returning to small scale organic farming is a viable solution to the problems of resource depletion, climate change and the end of oil. Vandana Shiva, physicist and environmental activist, speaks of the importance of seeds and seed saving from her fields in India. The Intervale in Burlington, Vermont had been farmland during revolutionary times but had become literally the town dump when entrepreneur Will Raap worked to revitalize this bottomland. Now the many farms and community gardens there provide 10% of the fresh produce in the city. Stone Barns, just north of New York City, is the home of a world class restaurant and a gathering place for the community. A wonderful back and forth discussion between acclaimed chef Dan Barber and Four Seasons Farm Manager Jack Algiere reveals an admirable dynamic between chef and grower. Esteemed soil scientist Dr. Daniel Hillel, now 80 years old, philosophizes about our origins as people of the soil.

The film ultimately raises consciousness about how we think about and treat soil. We see that destructive land use practices degrade and poison the soil and that we must take responsibility for protecting and improving soil for the generations to come. This heightened, science-based awareness can inform our responses to proposed U.S. Farm Bill policies, improve our backyard gardening skills and educate us about the consequences of our food choices on the environment. For example, Symphony of the Soil shows how municipalities, such as the City of San Francisco, have taken on large scale composting initiatives. These days many backyard gardeners, small scale farmers, and organic food enthusiasts recognize the necessity for turning food and yard waste into compost which can enhance soil fertility. Indeed, healthy soil creates healthy plants which create healthy people.

Why should we care about soil? As climate change and the increase in carbon emissions in the atmosphere cause more and more disasters, carbon sequestration becomes increasingly important. Healthy, living soil enhances the earth’s natural ability to hold carbon in the soil, thus reducing the emission of “greenhouse gasses” into the atmosphere and thereby alleviating global warming. Improving soil also improves water use. Understanding and respecting the power and potential that soil has to help solve environmental problems is essential. Once people have that understanding and appreciation, they will move towards appropriate action. As Dr. Fred Kirschenmann, farmer and philosopher, tells us, restoring the fertility of our soil is the single most important challenge we face today.

SYMPHONY OF THE SOIL—DISTINGUISHED SCREENINGS.

A special work-in-progress version of Symphony of the Soil was shown at U.C. Berkeley as The Hans Jenny Memorial Lecture in the spring of 2010. The film includes several of the university’s distinguished soil scientists. This special version was also shown at Yale University and California State University at Fresno, as part of the school’s 100th Anniversary Celebration. More food is grown in Fresno County than any place in the world.

SONATAS OF THE SOIL – SHORT FILMS

These short films are unique, stand-alone films, twelve to twenty minutes in length. They serve a dual purpose of promoting interest in the feature length film and providing in depth information on specific topics such as dry farming, nitrogen, the Transition Movement, Biodynamic farming, composting, soil/water relationships, and carbon sequestration. There will ultimately be twenty of these films available.

Soil in Good Heart,2008,13 minutes,
A brief introduction to soil fertility. Special Jury Recognition Award at the Aspen Shortsfest Film Festival

The Promise of Biochar, 2008, 12 minutes The Promise of Biochar is a glance at the deep history and modern potential for biochar to revolutionize soil management practices. Carbon filled Terra Preta, a prehistoric form of Biochar, may have helped Amazonian natives to sustain fertility on poor tropical soils for centuries. Will Biochar be modern agriculture’s equivalent savior?

Portrait of a Winemaker: John Williams of Frog’s Leap, 2011, 15 minutes Portrait of a Winemaker tells the remarkable story of John Williams and Frog’s Leap Vineyards in the Napa Valley where organically dry-farmed grapes make award winning wine.

Sekem Vision, 2011, 14 minutes Sekem Vision features the sustainable development and business pioneers Dr Ibrahim Abouleish and his son, Helmy Abouleish as they discuss their vision for the comprehensive development initiative, Sekem, a giant biodynamic farming community in the deserts of Egypt.

Transition Town Totnes, 2011, 13 minutes Transition Town Totnes features Transition movement founder Rob Hopkins as he discusses the core principles of the Transition Initiative, a global community response to the twin pressures of climate change and peak oil. The film won Best Short in the 2011 Yale Environmental Film Festival.

Biography: Deborah Koons Garcia

Deborah Koons Garcia has a Master of Fine Arts from The San Francisco Art Institute. She has made fiction, educational and documentary films. Her film production company, Lily Films, is located in Mill Valley, California. For the last ten years, she has focused primarily on films about agriculture and the food system.

Her film The Future of Food premiered at Film Forum in New York City. It continues to play widely all over the world in theaters and at film, food and farming festivals and conferences and at thousands of community-organized screenings. Garcia has personally taken her film to innovative venues such as Google headquarters, Burning Man arts festival in the desert of Nevada, and shown it to inmates in the gardening program at San Quentin prison.

Filmography: Deborah Koons Garcia
All About Babies, 1987, 5 Part series narrated by Jane Alexander 150 minutes
Poco Loco, 1995, 103 minutes
Grateful Dawg, 2000, 81 minutes (chief creative consultant/participant)
The Future of Food, 2004, 88 minutes|
Soil In Good Heart, 2008, 13 minutes
The Promise of Biochar, 2008, 12 minutes
Portrait of a Winemaker: John Williams of Frog’s Leap, 2011, 15 minutes
Sekem Vision, 2011, 14 minutes
Transition Town Totnes, 2011, 13 minutes
Symphony of the Soil, 2012, 103 minutes

People Involved/Interviewed for Symphony of the Soil:

Helmy Abouleish, Managing Director of the Sekem Initiative
Professor Ibrahim Abouleish, Chairman of Sekem Group and Founder of Sekem
John Aeschliman, Farmer, J.E.A. Farms Ltd., Colfax, WA
Jack Algiere, Four Season Farm Manager, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
Dan Barber, Chef, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and Blue Hill Restaurant, New York
- I thought you make compost, you make compost, right? But there’s a recipe to that that’s as interesting and as profound and as important as the recipes that I’m making in the kitchen.
Dr. Charles Benbrook, Chief Scientist of The Organic Center
Dr. Viraj Beri, Professor and Head of Department of Soils, Punjab Agricultural University
Bob Cannard, Farmer, Cannard Farms, Sonoma, CA
Dr. Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, BIOAg Specialist with the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University
Dr. Oliver Chadwick, Professor of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara
Dr. Ignacio Chapela, Microbial Ecologist and Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley
- Most of the planet is not living—it is mineral, It has never known life, it is just this rock. And yet soil starts forming on it and creates this crust, this very thin layer where life is possible.
Jaspal Singh Chattha, Farmer, J & P Organic Farm, India
Dr. I.M. Chhibba, Senior Soil Chemist, Department of Soils, Punjab Agricultural University
Philippe Coderey, Bonny Doon Vineyard, Santa Cruz, CA
Dr. Julia Cooper, Research Associate, Nafferton Ecological Farming Group, Newcastle University
Dr. Laurie Drinkwater, Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture, Cornell University
Umendra Dutt, Executive Director, Kheti Virasat Mission, Punjab, India
Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Director General of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia and PhD in Plant Ecology
Dr. Kimberly Epps, Post-Doctorate in Soil Science, Stanford University
Anne Evans, Farmer, Blaencamel Farm, Wales
Josh Frye, Poultry Farmer, Wardensville, WV
Dr. Jerry Glover, Soil Scientist, The Land Institute, Salina, KS
Dr. Keith Goulding, Head of the Department of Soil Science at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, United Kingdom
Randall Grahm, Owner, Bonny Doon Vineyard, Santa Cruz, CA
Dr. Zakaria El Haddad, Professor of Agriculture at Benha University and Director of the Egyptian Biodynamic Association
Dr. Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist with Consumers Union, Publisher of Consumer Reports
- There are so many microorganisms in one gram of soil that 70 to 80 percent of them still have never been identified. Soil is more properly viewed like this ecosystem. It’s a living thing.
Dr. Paul Hepperly, Research Director 2002-2009, The Rodale Institute
Dr. Hans R. Herren, Co-Chair of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development
Dr. Daniel Hillel, Retired Professor of Soil Physics and Hydrology and Senior Research
Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
- We banish ourselves from the Garden of Eden by despoiling it.
Angela Hofmann, Coordinator of Agriculture and Instructor for Agricultural Engineers, Sekem
Patrick Holden, Farmer, Director of the Soil Association, United Kingdom 1995 – 2010
- In a way, agriculture is a dance with nature.
Rob Hopkins, Founder of Transition Town Totnes and the Transition Network
Dr. David Huggins, Soil Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Pullman, WA
Dr. Elaine Ingham, President and Director of Research, Rodale, 2011; President and Director of Research, Soil Foodweb Inc 1996 – 2011
- It’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve all the time in the soil. When you take that soil and you put it under a microscope and you start looking, it is a place full of life.
Brad Jaeckel, Manager of Washington State University Organic Farm
Vijay Jardhari, Seed Saver, Farmer, Activist, Uttrakhand, India
Jennifer Johnson, Graduate Student in Biology, Stanford University
Parminder Kaur, Natural Farmer, Kothy Gradhirin Wala, Punjab, India
Surinder Kaur, Natural Farmer, Kheti Virasat Mission, Punjab, India
Dr. Fred Kirschenmann, North Dakota biodynamic farmer, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
- The way my grandfather farmed was that he’d break up a piece of prairie, and
he would grow wheat and oats usually, sometimes corn, until the nutrients were
depleted. And then he would break up a new piece of prairie. That’s not ecological farming. That’s-that’s sort of slash-and-burn farming.
- The most important thing that we can do right now is to take seriously what Sir Albert Howard called the “Law of Return.” What he meant by that was the best way to enhance and retain the living capacity of the soil and its capacity for self-renewal is to return to the soil all of those things that we use that we get from the soil.
- Sixty percent of our/ ecological systems now are reaching the point of collapse. If that were to happen, then it will fundamentally change the functioning of the planet.
- How do we continue to produce an adequate amount of food for a population of 6.5 billion people and getting larger? We have increasing energy costs, depleting water resources and we have more unstable climates and more severe weather events.
- The only thing that I can see that really looks promising is to get back to the fundamentals of the soil.
- The success that we’ve had in our food system over the last 70 years or so has
been due to a unique convergence of circumstances. One is that we have had this
incredible supply of cheap energy in the form of oil and natural gas and coal.
Jerry Konanui, Mahiai Farmer, Hawaii
Dr. Raj Kumar, Senior Pedologist, Department of Soils, Punjab Agricultural University
Satish Kumar, Editor of Resurgence Magazine and Program Director of Schumacher College
Dr. Tim LaSalle, CEO 2007 – 2010, The Rodale Institute
- What we need is healthy soil with organic matter in it.
Dr. Johannes Lehmann, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Cornell University
Ala Lindsey, Researcher with Stanford University Research Team, Kohala, Hawaii
Penny Livingston-Stark, Co-Director of the Regenerative Design Institute and Co-Manager of the Commonweal Garden Organic Farm, Bolinas, CA
- We don’t grow plants. We grow soil, and soil grows plants.
Kevin Lunny, Rancher, Lunny Ranch, Inverness, CA
Harry MacCormack, Organic Farmer, Sunbow Farm, Corvallis, OR
- When you look at the real things that we’re dealing with on this earth at a molecular, cellular level, change is life. So we’re in constant change. We’re in constant creation. And it’s that constant creation that we get to help manage on a farm.
Klaas Martens,Organic Farmer, Martens’ Farm, Penn Yan, NY
- If this soil is healthy and balanced, this cabbage plant is going to be healthy and balanced.
Bill McKibben, Scholar in Residence at Middlebury College
Mary Howell Martens, Farmer and Manager of Lakeview Organic Grain, Martens’ Farm, Penn Yan, NY
Professor Steve McGrath, Senior Principal Scientist, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, United Kingdom
Dr. David R. Montgomery, Professor of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington
- There’s an incredible diversity of soils on the planet. There’s not just one kind of good dirt.
- There are two very fundamentally different outcomes that agriculture can bring to a soil. It can improve it or degrade it. Agriculture is not necessarily destructive. And the difference depends on how one treats the soil.
- If we continue to aggressively pursue plow-based conventional agriculture the way that we are at present, we’ll eventually deplete the supply of soil. Eventually the areas of highly fertile, highly productive agricultural soils will become very valuable and fought-over. They will become sort of the central organizing element of the
geopolitical reality. – We could be in a situation where we’re essentially trading a system that mines oil for a system that mines soil. In which case we’ve just changed the time frame over which we’re going to engineer disaster
Jeffrey Moyer, Farm Director, The Rodale Institute
Dr. David Pimentel, Professor of Ecology and Agricultural Sciences, Cornell University
Dr. Warren Porter, Professor of Zoology & Environmental Toxicology and an Affiliate Faculty, Member of Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Dr. Sohan Prihar, Retired Professor of Soil Physics, Punjab Agricultural University
Will Raap, Environmental Entrepreneur, The Intervale, VT
Judith Redmond, Farmer and Partner at Full Belly Farm, CA
Dr. John Reganold, Regents Professor of Soil Science, Washington State University
- Soils have parents just like we have parents.
- We have 30-40 inches of today’s soil that’s being farmed. This is over 30 inches of a prehistoric soil, which is over another 30 inches of prehistoric soil. And it just keeps going down.
Dr. Kate Scow, Professor of Soil Science and Microbial Ecology Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California at Davis
Ray Schutte, Community Garden Advocate and President of P-Patch Trust, Seattle, WA
Peter Segger, Farmer, Blaencamel Farm, Wales
Bob Shaffer, Agronomist, Horticulturist and Viticulturist, Soil Culture Consulting
- This is about one million pounds of recycled organic food and recycled organic green waste.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, Physicist and Environmental Activist
- For one seed you plant, you get a thousand…For thousands of seeds you plant, you get a million… Fertility really is the power of the soil to keep producing. The power of the seed is to keep reproducing year after year after year.
Balwinder Singh, Farmer, Kothy Gradhirin Wala, Punjab, India
Chamkour Singh, Farmer, Kheti Virasat Mission, Punjab, India
Dr. M.P. Singh, Soil Scientist, Navdanya Farm, Dehradun, India
Rajendra Singh, Water Conservationist and Founder of Tarun Bharat Sangh, Rajasthan,India
Sally Smith, Head of Information and Training at Garden Organic Ryton, Coventry, United Kingdom
Dr. Saran Sohi, Soil Researcher, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, United Kingdom
Dr. Janice Thies, International Professor for Soil Biology, Cornell University
Dr. Peter Vitousek, Professor of Biology, Stanford University
- What makes Hawaii such a great place to study and understand soils is, first of all the volcano. You can go from places where the volcano is active and the rock was hot yesterday to places where you have soils being affected/ by life for 5 million years.
Warren Weber, Farmer, Star Route Farms, Bolinas, CA
- We started this farm back in 1974. One of the things they told us was that we wouldn’t really be able to farm organically in California because California is an arid climate. …
And we were told that probably you weren’t going to be able to farm organically in any commercially successful way because you couldn’t get the humus levels high enough — to have the bacteria in the soil hold the nitrogen and the fertility elements that need it for the crops… in fact we’re farming organically all over the state now and this farm is the oldest certified organic farm in California.
Hans Werner, Founder of Sekem Medical Clinic
John Williams, Owner and Winemaker, Frog’s Leap Winery, Rutherford, CA
Dr. Edward Yeboah, Research Scientist, Soil Research Institute, Ghana, and Rothamsted International African Fellow, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, United Kingdom

Resources for Learning More

Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

http://www.biodynamics.com

Dig It! 
The Smithsonian’s national exhibit about Soil

http://forces.si.edu/soils/

Food Democracy Now
 Dedicated to building a sustainable food system http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/

Soil Association (U.K.)

http://www.soilassociation.org

Soil Science Society of America

https://www.soils.org/about-soils/

Transition US
 Seeking to build a resilient society without fossil fuels

http://transitionus.org/

United States Department of Agriculture,
Natural Resources Conservation Service

http://www.soils.usda.gov

Live Real-
Young people working to change the way we eat

http://www.liverealnow.org/

The Promise of Bio-Char Pt 1

The Promise of Bio-Char Pt  2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-hSl59ET2A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6EPKYp5UgI

Anthroposophic Physician Dr Thomas Cowan

Dr. Tom Cowan discovered the work of the two men who would have the most influence on his career while teaching gardening as a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland, South Africa. He read Nutrition and Physical Degenerationby Weston Price, and a fellow volunteer explained the arcane principles of Rudolf Steiner’s™ biodynamic agriculture. These events inspired him to pursue a medical degree. Tom graduated from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in 1984. After his residency in Family Practice at Johnson City Hospital in Johnson City, New York, he set up an anthroposophical medical practice in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Dr. Cowan relocated to San Francisco in 2003.

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Dr. Cowan has served as vice president of the Physicians Association for Anthroposophical Medicine and is a founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. He is the principal author of the book, The Fourfold Path to Healing, which was published in 2004 by New Trends Publishing. He writes the “Ask the Doctor” column in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the Foundation’s™ quarterly magazine, and has lectured throughout the United States and Canada. He has three grown children and currently practices medicine in San Francisco where he resides with his wife, Lynda Smith Cowan. <bio provided by Dr Cowan’s office>

What is “The Fourfold Path to Healing” ?

Considered a companion to Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, The Fourfold Path of Healing is a unique, comprehensive view of medicine, a holistic approach to healing that integrates the four aspects of our bodies: the Physical, the Life-Force, the Emotional and the Mental.

Its principles are simple: right diet for healing the physical body; beneficial medicines or therapies for the life-force body; healing movement and exercise for the emotional body, and effective thinking activity for the mental body.

Dr. Cowan merges the wisdom of traditional societies, the most modern findings of western medicine and the esoteric teachings of the ancients as he works to answer this most important question: How do we obtain true health?

The Fourfold Path integrates proper nutrition, appropriate therapeutics, movement exercises and focused meditation. <from Dr Cowan’s website>

Resources

Dr Cowan’s Website

Show Notes

Notes on Dr. Thomas Cowan Podcast
Agricultural background. Peace Corp. Biodynamic farming. Steiner – gardening. Findhorn books.
Buried trash. Didn’t know anything about gardening.
Anthroposophy study in medical school. Temple Wilton Community Garden – first member.
17 years in Petersboro, VT, area.
San Francisco Live Power Farm.
Alan Chadwick – discussion of his greatness.
Anthroposophic medicine. Iscador. Schwenk Flower Farm. Mistletoe.
Steiner to Pffeiffer. Will – action – force of nutrition. Cosmic cycles.
All into astrology. Cowan diverged from strict Anthroposophy.
100 years ago, Great Plains – always found 12 feet of black topsoil. By 1930, blown away. Soil dead.
Soil depletion in East as well.
“Even best food basically crap.” People are sick. That’s a reflection of the soil.
Phytonutrients – secondary metabolites for protection.
Is biodynamic food nutrient-dense? Bay area – large garden Zen monastery. Green Gulch Farm
(Chadwick farm).
Dr. Cowan’s diet based on highest quality of food.
Really good food does not spoil as quickly – produce stays fresh for months. Story about guy with
spinach in truck, not refrigerated, looked great.
Nutrition from animal products; medicine from plants . . . . in form of secondary metabolites.
Animal food builds body, plant food is for health . . .
Questions
Q. How to increase ego forces, strength? What about albumen in urine?
A. “Jargon.” I try to avoid jargon. Albumen in urine would be a problem in the kidneys.
Q. How to restore feeling in the body – “thinking and willing.” What about Diascora (sp.?) – yam?
A. To abstract and esoteric. I have used Diascora . . . .
Q. Why so many addicts?
A. Changes re addiction. We live in a very sick culture. We’re about to destroy ourselves. We spend
money, pay taxes to support a sick culture. This sucks. That’s why so many people are addicts, to
escape from this reality. A lot can’t take it. Topsoil/food/air/water/breast milk chemical/climate
change. This is unprecedented. This sucks.
Q. WAPF Dallas: You talked about stress-free living, indigenous peoples living stress-free.
A. Aside from diseases I wouldn’t want to get like smallpox, indigenous immune systems were different:
their immune systems reacted to diseases like cancer but not to infectious diseases. Not a medicine
question [?].
Q. What about rheumatoid arthritis?
A. Like any autoimmune disease, protein in blood. In through the gut – gut healing, GAPS diet, 18
months. Low-dose naltrexone increases endorphins. Fermented turmeric – has to be special ordered.
Q. How do you prescribe?
A. I send out prescriptions.
Q. What about degenerative back disease?
A. Nourishing Traditions – gelatin – bone broths – Bamboosa, tree-like/grass-like. Spatial dynamics for
healthy flow through the spine.
Q. What about Alzheimer’s, dementia?
A. Mary Newport – epilepsy – ketogenic diet. Brain likes fat more than carbohydrates. Seizures = Type
2 diabetes of the brain. Switching fuel from sugar to fat: high fat, modest protein, high vegetables.
YouTube – fats + warm body/ego: anthroposophical.
Q. What about Atkins diet?
A. Not quality based. First step: quality. High protein. Not good human diet. Ketosis not bad, just a
bad name.
Q. What about paleo?
A. Not against grains. Part of evolution of human consciousness – transit to modern consciousness – to
far with grains, ruin soil and health. Go back to paleo to regain health, then reintroduce grains, properly
prepared of course.
Q. What’s a good probiotic?
A. BioKult – GAPS – BioCell [?].

Steven McFadden

We talk about the Future of CSAs in the United States.

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Steven McFadden’s webpage is http://chiron-communications.com

Steven McFadden is the author of twelve non-fiction books, including: Legend of the Rainbow Warriors; Profiles in Wisdom; The Little Book of Native American Wisdom; Teach Us To Number Our Days; Farms of Tomorrow; and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited; Tales of the Whirling Rainbow: Authentic Myths & Mysteries for 2012.

Chiron Communications is essentially a conceptual umbrella to unify his diverse work as a writer, speaker, counselor, healer, and also a partner in Good Medicine Consulting.

Steven is also the author of an epic, nonfiction saga of North America: Odyssey of the 8th Fire.

As of 2012 his most active blog is The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century, to support the book of the same title, now in a greatly expanded second edition.

Steven founded Chiron Communications in the 1980s, but rested the enterprise in the 1990s to serve as National Coordinator for the annual Earth Day Celebration (1993) and later as director of The Wisdom Conservancy at Merriam Hill Education Center in Greenville, New Hampshire.

A Reiki Master of long standing, Steven has taught the Reiki healing techniques to hundreds of students across North and Central America. It was my privilege to help John Harvey Gray and Lourdes Gray, Ph.D. write Hand to Hand: The Longest Practicing Reiki Master Tells His Story.

Steven maintains an active interest in farming and gardening in general, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in particular; he’s reported on the growth and development of CSA in America since its inception in 1986.

Tom Mueller is the author of "Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil"

Both a terrifying window onto the effects of globalization of the food industry in an age of lax regulation, and an eye-opening call to action, EXTRA VIRGINITY proves that becoming more educated about quality extra virgin olive oil can be one of life’s singular pleasures.

This is such an astonishing book. It’s amazing how Tom Mueller’s portrayal of how increased public demand for olive oil has created a  crises for traditional producers of high quality olive oil parallel’s how the success of the CSA model as a source of fresh, chemical and GMO-free produce in the DC-area has attracted a raft of purveyors of lower quality produce resellers who are so successful in their charade that they are putting quality local producers out of business. It’s a rule of the market: when a product is bringing a good price and has attracted a strong following, imitators move in to offer lower quality or, in many cases, outright counterfeit goods, at the same price, driving out The Good. Only caveat emptor can save us now. This book is full of profound caveat.

My favorite section of this book is where Mr Mueller talks about the phytonutrients of olive oil and how these rare but very easy to assimilate  nutrients are the true ‘health secrets’ of the Mediterranean diet (ie it’s nutrients in high quality traditional  olive oil, the kind that’s used every day in countries like Italy, and not “olive oil” itself which promote human health), but those nutrients simply are not present in low quality diluted and polluted USA commercial olive oils. Let me repeat that: if you are using low quality olive oil, it probably contains zero of the health promoting phytonutrients that make olive oil a wise choice from a health perspective. The same is true in organic produce, of course. We are now learning that many of the health promoting  and anti-cancer nutrients in plants are only present in plants that have been growing in highly mineralized biologically active soils. WIthout the precursors to the phytonutrients, which are only available to the plants in these artesianal soils, a plant never develops any of these beneficial substances! (Plants produce these phytonutrients for their own protection. This is why plants in Nature seldom need pesticides and plants in corporate agricultural fields need pesticides continuously.)

I’m going to be interviewing Tom Mueller this Saturday afternoon for my Biodynamics Now! podcast. The podcast will be published at www.bdnow.org in a couple of weeks. I’m inviting you, if you have any questions about olive oil for Tom Mueller, to ask those questions at www.bdnow.org (under the ‘podcast’ menu button.) Post your question(s) there by noon on Saturday and I’ll try to present them to Tom in the interview.  -Farmer Allan

EXTRA VIRGINITY – THE SUBLIME AND SCANDALOUS WORLD OF OLIVE OIL

By Tom Mueller

Praise for Extra Virginity

“How long have readers been waiting for a book like this? A century? A millennium?

Finally, the earth’s most poetic food has found its storyteller. Essential, smart, and ridiculously overdue.” Bill Bruford, Best Selling Author of “Heat”

“Mueller builds a convincing case for olive oil as one of the most miraculous and versatile substances in all of nature … Passionately written yet clear-headed.” USA Today

“Extra Virginity promises a journey into the ‘sublime and scandalous world of olive oil’ and delivers on that promise. Readers of this book will never again look at olive oil in the same way.” New York Journal of Books

“Mueller reveals the brazen fraud in the olive oil industry and teaches readers how to sniff out the good stuff.” New York Times

“The most delicious crime world exposé you can hope to read this month — or probably ever.” Flavorpill

“Extra Virginity” may make you reconsider the extra you’re paying for ‘extra.’” Wall Street Journal

“Mueller’s subject matter is so rich (if low in saturated fats)…” Business Week

“The New Yorker writer does for his subject what Susan Orlean did for orchids.” Columbus Dispatch

“A sparkling, stylish, sharply observed narrative that entertains and educates.” Dallas Morning News

REVIEWS

FROM THE KIRKUS REVIEW:
Expanding on his New Yorker article exposing fraud in the olive oil industry, Mueller considers the trade’s past, present, and future.

The author opens with an olive oil tasting, where experts identify the flavors and fragrances that distinguish high-quality oil from lampante, which can legally be sold only for fuel—except that lax enforcement by the EU has led to an epidemic of oil labeled extra virgin and/or “100 percent Italian” when in fact it is a blend of cheaper oils from other countries. In addition to the slippery (but often surprisingly engaging) rascals whose shenanigans Mueller investigated in the original article, the author visits conscientious cultivators striving to elevate standards with a combination of time-honored techniques and cutting-edge technology. Among them are the De Carlos in Puglia, historic center of Italian olive oil production; the Vaño family in Jaén, trying to improve the generally low quality of Spanish oil; and Gordon Smyth of the New Norcia monastery near Perth, innovative preserver of a tradition established by the Spanish monks who brought olive trees to Australia in 1846. Mueller consults with chemists and government officials on two continents to examine why extra virgin olive oil is so healthful and why attempts to control its adulteration have been so ineffectual. (Short answer: corruption in Italy; indifferent FDA in America.) He intersperses aromatic vignettes from the history of olive oil, which in centuries past adorned the bodies of Greek athletes, burned in lamps in Christian churches, served as a folk remedy for a plethora of ailments and set the civilized Romans apart from those barbarians who favored meat, beer and animal fat over bread, wine and oil. So, “[a]re we witnessing a renaissance in oil, or the death of an industry?” The answer is still uncertain, but lovers of fine food and fine prose will relish Mueller’s exploration of the storied byways and modern sanctuaries of the olive, related with supple elegance.

Engrossing history, vivid contemporary reporting and a cogent call to action, expertly blended in an illuminating text.

REVIEW:
“Destined to be a classic in the food lit canon, Extra Virginity is a fabulous work of historical research and reporting–and a page turner as well. Mueller takes us on a fascinating journey from the sacred to the corrupt. It’s a read I couldn’t resist.”

–Laura Schenone, James Beard winning author of A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove

REVIEW:
“Extra Virginity is a fascinating book and a timely one too, as olive oil undergoes changes in classifications, as more of it is being madearound the world, and as millions more have come to choose it over other fats. Tom Mueller masterfully separates strands of information— and misinformation— about a subject that is complex and often dark but also one that illuminated with stories that reflect the dedication, heart and know-how to produce that oil that is truly a scared substance.”

–Deborah Madison, winner of 3 James Beard awards and author of 20 cookbooks, most recently Local Flavors and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

From the publisher: about EXTRA VIRGINITY

America is the third-largest olive oil consumer in the world, but that familiar glass bottle that’s a staple of so many U.S. pantries holds a shocking secret.

Odds are that most, if not all, of the oils marked “extra virgin” in your local supermarket are imposters, harlots masquerading in virgins’ clothing.

As a consequence, consumers are robbed of the health benefits associated with high-quality, antioxidant-rich real extra virgin olive oil, which is the active ingredient of the Mediterranean diet, and exhibits remarkable therapeutic properties against conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s.

How do we differentiate between the authentic and the phony? And how could this kind of food fraud become so rampant?

Offering a revelatory look at the rich, fascinating, and often contradictory world of olive oil production and consumption, Tom Mueller investigates the enigmatic substance and the billion dollar global industry that produces it in EXTRA VIRGINITY: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil [W. W. Norton & Company; December 5, 2011; $25.95 hardcover].

A timely, masterfully executed exploration, mingling history, science, and exposé, that expands on Mueller’s lauded August 2007 New Yorker article, “Letter from Italy: Slippery Business,” this book is a riveting portrait of the traditions, politics, geography, current affairs, key figures, and culinary movements that shape today’s olive oil industry. Mueller introduces honest artisan producers, from Australia to Italy to California, who create magnificent oils but struggle to make ends meet in a market awash with fraud; criminals making millions off fraudulent oils; the contemporary scientists investigating oil’s diverse chemical properties and health benefits; and a fascinating cast of chefs, food activists, bureaucrats, and priests, all of whom are obsessed with olive oil.

Among myriad eye-opening stories, EXTRA VIRGINITY reveals that records of inspections against fraudulent practice in the olive oil trade date back to as early as the twenty-fourth century BC. The enduring presence of trickery in olive oil production attests to this commodity’s extraordinary importance to humanity.

Throughout history, olive oil has been used not just as a foodstuff but also in religious rituals, cosmetics and perfumes, aphrodisiacs and sexual aids; and as fuel, balm, and spiritual essence, celebrated by the likes of Sophocles and Martial, Jesus and Muhammad.

Along with its countless applications, olive oil also has a rigorous quality standard. It is the only product for which a taste test is actually part of the legal definition of authenticity and quality. Mueller takes the reader to a modern laboratory, where a trained team olive oil tasters slurp away, looking for official taste flaws, such as musty, fusty, rancid, and grubby, and describing positive attributes of well-crafted oils, such as artichoke, fresh-cut grass, green tomato, or kiwi.

Yet despite the rigor and meticulousness of this rating system, there is still no assurance that the sticker on any given bottle of olive oil reflects the content. In fact, as Mueller shows, fake oil is just the glistening tip of a vast iceberg of food fraud. The enormous popularity of the “Made in Italy” label worldwide makes it an appetizing target for food fraudsters, who earn an estimated $80 billion a year selling counterfeit or adulterated faux-Italian foods.

Since price competition in the food industry is fierce, companies are often willing to buy their raw materials from dubious sources, even at prices so low they suggest that the foods are fake. Added to this are the challenges inherent in testing and policing a massive, far-flung, internationalized food and agriculture sector rife with companies whose chemical knowledge and expertise far outstrip those of the investigators. In a market such as this, the honest olive oil producer faces almost insurmountable challenges. According to Mueller, unless something is done within the next few years to halt olive oil crime, the ancient and storied tradition of olive oil manufacturing will come to an end.

Luckily, awareness is spreading and a revolution is afoot in olive oil quality, particularly in the New World, where skilled artisanal growers and oil competitions abound. For readers interested in joining the movement, EXTRA VIRGINITY offers a wealth of resources, including:

• A glossary of olive oil terminology
• Advice on choosing a quality oil
• Tips on which oil types to pair with different foods
• An extensive list of Web sites for further information

ExtraVirginity.com is the go-to place on the web for olive oil news and a regularly-updated guide to the best oils from each year’s harvest.

You can read Tom Mueller’s original Letter from Italy:  Slippery Business: The trade in adulterated olive oil in the August 17, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, which was the kernel this book was built around here

About TOM MUELLER:

Tom Mueller writes for The New Yorker and other publications. He lives in a medieval stone farmhouse surrounded by olive groves in the Ligurian countryside outside of Genoa, Italy.