Author: Margot Anne Kelley

Published by: Godine, 2022

Do you believe that gardening and food can be a movement that can change lives? If you feel that gardening and farming is about more than yourself, then you may identify with some of the individuals mentioned in this book.

Kelley traces the evolution of these nature and food communities through the history of the United States and historical events which occurred during the time which caused people to turn away from conventional life and to live a more simple life.

She starts with Henry David Thoreau, an important figure who emerged in the mid 1840s, with other Trancendentalists and his experiment. I enjoyed her depiction of Thoreau, of someone who used his carpenter skill sets when constructing a small abode. She depicts him as a practical person who didn’t really fit into society, not relishing a life that was becoming more urban, and disliked the concept of money. He was not the best gardener but learned as he lived near the pond.

There were other figures around this time including Amos Bronson Alcott (Louisa May’s father) and the entire Alcott family being a part of the experiment on land called Fruitlands with Charles Lane. This affilation ended when the two differing personalities and found it difficult to live with each other.

Scott and Helen Nearing and their popular 1970s “Living the Good Life” was a couple that went to the land due to society’s inequality in both economic and racial sense. Their belief was that by starting from the basic means of living only can people be free and become themselves. Without much skill, the two embarked in being self-sustainable and detailed it in their book.

“Foodtopia” outlines the ways in which these utopian societies had a set of rules, whether it is according to what they ate or other social rules, and the eventual fall out. Kelley concludes that the latest 21st century wave of Millenials forming their new utopia, one that is more inclusive of everyone and less bogged with ideology, is perhaps the most practical as they have learned from the past and has the potential to be the most successful.

I enjoyed reading this book (well-written) and identified with the historical figures and ideology. It gave validity to my gardening and the idealism that I hold. As the world is becoming contentious, the environment eroding, and times seemingly bleak, it offered a possibility of what our world could become.