Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This chapter primarily deals with the family’s first Thanksgiving as locavores, although Kingsolver first updates the reader on the progress of Lily’s egg business as it gets underway and starts to be profitable.

Kingsolver points out that Thanksgiving is really the only US holiday “with food traditions that are really our own” (280). It is a harvest festival, deeply rooted in farming, although “in modern times it’s mostly pageantry, of course, this rejoicing over harvest and having made it to winter’s doorstep with enough food” (281). For the family, however, the harvest is more literal, and they celebrate the miracle and “the promise to do it all again next year” (284).

The family had successfully cut out most non-local food, though Kingsolver admits with practicality that they still buy some staples like pasta and cereal, taking steps to purchase sustainably produced versions. Since they have reached winter fed and with enough stored to get through to spring, the experiment seems to have been a success. However, Kingsolver knows “we needed fellow locavores to add clout to our quest, and in time we’ll have them” (286).

The author then explores other holidays because “for most people everywhere, surely, food anchors holiday traditions” (288). She advocates for eating well at holidays like Thanksgiving, rather than giving into the “stigma my culture has attached to celebrating food, especially for women” (288).