Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Subtitle: A Year of Food Life

Author: Barbara Kingsolver

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

Publish Date: May 2007

Read: May 2025

Favorite Quote: If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.

Synopsis: After living in Tuscon, Arizona for twenty years, Kingsolver and family decide to move to rural Appalachia to homestead and live off the land. The challenge: try to farm or raise the items that will be eaten, supplementing only with locally milled flour and other small essentials (salt, sugar, etc.). No trucked in exotic meats, vegetables, or spices. If it can’t grow in Appalachia, it’s not served. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chronicles their experience and the community they found in the process.

Why does this book beguile? I’ve had this book since 2012 and never read it and I’m so glad I finally did. It’s a lovely story about farming, homesteading, and the importance of small, multi-crop farms without being preachy or overbearing. Kingsolver writes most of the book, but her husband Steven, and daughter Camille, contribute essays throughout, making this a true family experience. Plus, the recipes within look fantastic.

Bookshop.Org Link*: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Amazon.com Link* Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

If you’re interested in this, read*: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain - Bookshop.Org / Amazon.com