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Over the past 3 years, Hardwick, Vermont, a typical hardscrabble farming community of 3,000 residents, has jump-started its economy and redefined its self-image through a local, self-sustaining food system unlike anything else in America. Even as the recent financial downturn threatens to cripple small businesses and privately owned farms, a stunning number of food-based businesses have grown in the region-Vermont Soy, Jasper Hill Farm, Pete's Greens, Patchwork Farm & Bakery, Apple Cheek Farm, Claire's Restaurant and Bar, and Bonnieview Farm, to name only a few. The mostly young entrepreneurs have created a network of community support; they meet regularly to share advice, equipment, and business plans, and to loan each other capital. Hardwick is fast becoming a model for other communities to replicate its success. Author Ben Hewitt presents the captivating story of a small town coming back to life, The Town That Food Saved is narrative nonfiction at its best- full of colorful characters and grounded in an idea that will revolutionize the way we eat.… (more)
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The Town That Food Saved succeeds best when Hewitt is focused on the quirky characters, unique businesses, and attention grabbing anecdotes that he delivers throughout the book. Too often he gets mired down in historic details or pedantic discussions about terminology or methods. Still, the book is worth reading for the in depth exploration of issues about what constitutes local and sustainable and why those are important ideas in our food sources.
I listened to The Town That Food Saved on audio, read by Arthur Morey. He has a lovely, deep, sonorous voice that, at first, made the dull parts of the book even harder to pay attention to. As the pace quickened in the story and more personalities were introduced, his resonant tones added a pleasant dimension to the story.
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It's hard to describe the width and depth of food related businesses that this book covers, but I found the whole work remarkably fascinating. From exploring the simple but profound work of banking seeds to the impact of hormone use in the world of dairy farming, this work is one that will make anyone think twice about the everyday food we buy, prepare and eat.
It is the people of Hardwick, as well as their strides towards a system of local food production, that make Hewitt's book an engaging and entertaining read. The various interviews of farmers, businesspeople, restaurateurs, and politicians - many classified by Hewitt's invented portmanteau "agripreneurs" meaning agricultural entrepreneurs - lend a charming readability to the narrative. Hewitt presents the problems and conflicts openly and admits that there are not concrete solutions to the dilemmas Hardwick (and many towns like it) faced yet the positive economic and environmental strides being made are heralded. Overall, this is an interesting book for anyone whose curiosity is piqued by the origins of the meals on their plate and wants a deeper look at the ingenuity of Hardwick's people and the impact they could have on the food culture of an entire nation.
To make things even more intimate, my family has been going on vacation up in the Northeast Kingdom for the past decade or more [my mom's from VT], and we had dinner at Claire's shortly after it opened.
In 2010, I got introduced to Slow Money, the intersection of local food and local economy, and haven't looked back since. So Ben's questions of what underlies the adoption and long-term viability of local food systems and a local economy couldn't be more pertinent for me. I actually live in a community not unlike Hardwick [a comparatively strong local food system in an economically depressed rural area], in North Central MA.
This book is excellent. It's a snapshot of a place, a place, and a movement. Ben works his way through a series of portraits, looking at various facets of this picture: the entrepreneurs, the old-timers, the hippies. Many perspectives are captured.
This book is not the decisive map for how to save a town. But I wouldn't want to read such a book anyways. Ben as the vital questions that underlie culture and history. Regenerating a community is a process, not a product.