In Literature Appetizer, Ben gives you just a taste of a book. Not meant to replace the full meal, this is meant to whet your appetite. Bon appetit!
Modernist Bread Volume by Nathan Myhrvold & Francisco Migoya
While I have always loved bread, I didn’t start seriously making it until 2018. Like many folks starting their bread making journey, I looked online for “easy breads! Make in 2 hours!” It wasn’t until I got the book Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast that I took an interest in the process of bread making more. But every bread book after seemed like a step down. Sure they had recipes, but nothing to challenge me. That was until Modernist Bread. Don’t let the over $600 price tag scare you! I borrowed one volume at a time from my local library.
Volume 1 is all about the context for bread. History, microbiology, physics, etc. What I found most fascinating in this volume is our idea of “ancient breads” being rustic loafs are a modern invention. Most ancient breads just don’t taste good by our modern standards. Also, classic breads are also a modern invention. Baguette? 1920s. Ciabatta? 1980s. Just as we have expanded what we can do with cooking through globalization, we are on the verge of a golden age of bread innovation.
Volume 2 is all about the ingredients. From Flour to Yeast, Water to Salt, & everything in between, they discussed in depth entire life cycles of everything they experimented with bread making. One fun fact I learned in this book is that yeast will still produce some alcohol & CO2 in an Oxygen rich environment, but both will be much less than during fermentation.
Volume 3 is all about different techniques & equipment. This started to give me a taste of what is to come: recipes! From decorative breads to breads in a jar, this finally gave direct instructions to follow for specific types of bread. While the first two books were fascinating, by this point I was ready to actually start making bread.
Volumes 4 & 5 were all the recipes! After three full volumes of “we will get to that,” it was excellent to finally see some of the different types of bread they tried. What I especially liked about these volumes was the common breads had two recipes: one called Master Recipe (this was the standard), the other Modernist (which had all their fun changes).
I highly recommend picking these up from the library to read!
The Mercy of Gods by James A Corey
From looking over my Literature Appetizer series as a whole, I’m not a big fiction reader. Sure I love to get my stories from TTRPG’s or video games, but I usually stick to academic works for reading. Except for the Expanse. I loved the show, devoured the books, & even picked up the TTRPG system! So when the authors (under the shared pen name James A Corey) came out with a new series, I quickly got a copy.
If the Expanse discusses humanity finding an alien civilization long after they are dead, The Mercy of Gods is when aliens find humanity; & not just to chit chat. One of the most striking lines to me was the aliens describing what they were doing. To paraphrase “when humanity needed to make a spear, they didn’t ask how the tree would feel when they pulled off a branch. So why should we even ask humanity how it feels when we will use it like a simple branch in our expansion across the galaxy?” What a fantastic start of another epic.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
One of the questions my peers asked both at Allegheny & North Cascades to our professors was “what books should we be reading outside of class?” This was high on the list for all educators. Even after 50 years, Freire’s words still hold strong for what we as educators should be doing. Many, many teachers are unknowingly perpetuating colonial oppression through how they teach. One example is what he calls “the banking model.” Teachers are the holders of knowledge and they ‘bank’ the information into children to recall later. This removes the desire or skill for students to learn on their own. Instead, teachers should be giving just enough information to start students off on their own path of learning, assisting along the way. I will echo my professors to say this is a must read for all educators.
By the Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle
This was a perfect book to read after An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. While that book discussed the entire US history, By the Fire We Carry discussed a specific family & their relationship to survival during & after the Trail of Tears. While I highly recommend the entire book, one of the moments that stuck out to me the most was USA’s reaction to Andrew Jackson.
There are people today that will say “it was just a different time, we can’t judge people with our modern moral system.” But people at the time were calling the actions by the US government unacceptable. Their “old time standards” even said it was inhumane.
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Years ago I read the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I enjoyed the way he looked at his relationship to food & our systems we have made to get food to people. At the time, I connected to it on a deep level & thought I would love other works that he did. The Botany of Desire is fine. To me, I didn’t find it as compelling as Omnivore’s Dilemma, but it did give a good oversight on our relationship to apples, tulips, marijuana, & potatoes. I loved his logic of plants manipulating us just as they have done to bees. It gives the plants around us some agency that we often don’t see due to being so human centered. What I didn’t care for was his narrow view of our relationship to these plants. For example, in the Apple section he would discuss at great length how pioneers would see apples as “taming the wilderness,” but barely talked at all about how that ‘wilderness’ was actually land being taken. I don’t think he was intentionally trying to cover up the genocide, but rather was just focusing too much on European Colonizers.
Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry M. Caudill
This book claims to be a “biography of a depressed area.” In some ways, I completely agree with that description. It does an excellent job going into extensive detail the politics, events, & culture in Eastern Kentucky. But then, after doing an excellent job with historical events & systemic problems, it will turn around to say some of the dumbest & offensive takes I have ever heard.
For example, they describe in detail all the tricks mine owners use to exploit people. It shows how these owners create a system that hurts miners & their families. But in the same breath will say something like ‘the people of Eastern Kentucky are dumb, uneducated, & need to be taken off of the welfare state.’ These people are seen as ‘welfare dependent’ because they want to see the government, that they have paid taxes into, support them in their time of need.
Also, since this book was written in the 1960’s be prepared for slurs that weren’t considered slurs at the time (they actually were slurs at the time, but society at large didn’t care if they were insulting). Some of these slurs include "Squaw” & “Wetback.”
I don’t believe this is a ‘biography of a depressed land.’ I see this book as pivotal as ‘the way the rest of America will view Appalachia for the next 60 years.’
The Myth of Progress by Tom Wessels
Something that I have been wrestling with as a progressive is how the word “progress” can mean two very different things; either the growth of society along with the health of our planet or at the expense of it. It wasn’t too long ago that “highways through the mountains” was seen as progress instead of destroying communities/ecosystems.
Even though the book is over 20 years old, most of his words still ring true to this day. Our global economy is built in a lie. We cannot have infinite growth in a finite world. Wage inequality is still out of control. There will be a large societal change when the system fails. Wessels encourages us to build a new system, that is built on community rather than wealth, so that transition is an enjoyable one. A great message that is sadly still relevant to us today.
The Age of Deer by Erika Howsare
A truly excellent book that dives into humanity’s relationship with deer. From hunting as sport to hunting for food, there was no part that I think Howsare didn’t cover. I found it especially interesting with her thoughts on the “correct” number of deer. She doesn’t give an answer, but instead gives insight from many people that she interviews. Should it be what is healthiest for the forest? Or instead just how many deer humans can ‘tolerate?’ Why do we always ask “what is the carrying capacity of this area for deer?” but never “what is the carrying capacity for humans?”