The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food

The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food

Dan Barber

Language: English

Pages: 496

ISBN: 0143127152

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


“Not since Michael Pollan has such a powerful storyteller emerged to reform American food.” —The Washington Post

Today’s optimistic farm-to-table food culture has a dark secret: the local food movement has failed to change how we eat. It has also offered a false promise for the future of food. In his visionary New York Times–bestselling book, chef Dan Barber offers a radical new way of thinking about food that will heal the land and taste good, too. Looking to the detrimental cooking of our past, and the misguided dining of our present, Barber points to a future “third plate”: a new form of American eating where good farming and good food intersect. Barber’s The Third Plate charts a bright path forward for eaters and chefs alike, daring everyone to imagine a future for our national cuisine that is as sustainable as it is delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

grandparents—had already passed away.) Wary of mounting political turmoil, they had sold their farm and fled Europe in search of a new future in America. After World War I, Germans were not allowed to own land in the eastern United States, so the family moved to North Dakota and leased land to grow wheat. The crop failed, and in 1931, alarmed by the worsening conditions of the Dust Bowl, they moved again, to a dairy farm in Bainbridge, New York, where they finally prospered. But there were too

she had nothing to do with its health or virtue. Mr. Mitchell’s praise worked just as well for an impressionable kid like me. I knew Blue Hill Farm was the most special place in the world, but now there was proof—bragging rights that meant a lot (who could argue with a fattened cow?), even if I never bragged (because who would care?). Then a change happened on the farm that, at the time, I hardly noticed. The cows began to congregate at the fence line, necks down, to eat the perimeter grass.

another rich shot of corn flavor. The taste didn’t so much disappear as slowly, begrudgingly fade. It was an awakening. But the question for me was: Why? How had I assumed all those years that polenta smelled of nothing more than dried meal? It’s really not too much to ask of polenta to actually taste like the corn. But back then, I couldn’t have imagined the possibility until it happened. Jack’s planting strategy, as artful as a sonnet, combined with the corn’s impeccable genetics, changed how I

500,000 tons per year since 1988. More than 85 percent of the world’s fish stocks are now reported as fully exploited, overexploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion. The origins of the most serious damage coincided with the industrialization of American agriculture at the end of World War II. Which is not to say that prior to World War II the oceans were universally respected and well managed; just as destructive farming practices have been a part of agriculture since ancient times,

the plight of the oceans and gave what seemed like a loopy defense of a certain kind of tuna fishing, but when you are in the presence of Ángel’s extraordinary creations, you quickly adjust to the fervent and poetic way he experiences the world around him. Having never actually eaten his food, I arrived at Aponiente with enormous expectations. I came not only because of my own curiosity about Ángel and his work, but also because of Caroline Bates, of Gourmet. What better way to start righting

Download sample

Download