Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

377 Pages·2006·1.97 MB·English

by  Jessica Prentice

FULL
MOON
FEAST
FULL
MOON
FEAST
Food and the Hunger
for Connection
JESSICA PRENTICE
FOREWORD BY DEBORAH MADISON
CHELSEA GREEN PUBLISHING
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VERMONT
Copyright © 2006 Jessica Prentice. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form
by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Editor: Mary Bahr
Managing Editor: Marcy Brant
Copy Editor: Laura Jorstad
Proofreader: Collette Leonard
Designer: Peter Holm, Sterling Hill Productions
Design Assistant: Daria Hoak, Sterling Hill Productions
Illustrations by Sara Love
Printed in the United States
First printing, March 2006
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prentice, Jessica, 1968-
Full moon feast : food and the hunger for connection / Jessica Prentice.
p. cm.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60358019-9
1. Cookery (Natural foods) 2. Natural foods. I. Title.
TX741.P74 2006
641.5'63—dc22
2005036540
Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Post Office Box 428
White River Junction, VT 05001
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A listing of permissions for use of quoted material is on PERMISSIONS.
To the ancestors
and
the animals
World-Come-to-an-End Food
From a dialogue between two Karuk elders, recorded in northern California
around 1900. Translated from the Karuk by Julian Lang.
Vaa vúra kích pakunmáharatihanik Peekxaréeyavsa.
Koovúra vaa kunkupítihanik; pahûut Peekxaréyav kunkupítihanik,
vaa kunkupíti.
Xás pávaa pakun’áamtihanik Peekxaréeyav, víri vaa kích
pakun’áamti.
Vaa kinípeeranik, “Véek páy ku’áamtiheesh.
Peekxaréeyav áama kun’áamtihanik, xuun kunpátatihanik,
áama xákaan xuun. Káru pufích’iish kun’áamtihanik.”
Vaa vúra pakunfúhishtihanik, Peekxaréeyav
axakyâanich vúra kun’ípamtihanik, Vaa vúra kích
pakunkupítihanik.
Pa’apxantínihich pakunivyíhukanik, xás vaa kunípaanik,
“Kêemish pakun’áamti, Kemisha’ávaha,
ithivthaneentaniha’ávaha.”
Achíphan vúra va’áraaras vaa kích papishîich kun’ávanik
pa’apxantiich’ávaha.
Víri pakunvíshtar, vúra kunvíshtar. Puráan kunipêer,
“Vúra uum amáyav.”
Xás tákunpiip, “Ník’áta vúra uum pu’íimtihara. Naa táni’av,
pasára.”
Xás vaa koovúra papihnîichas káru pakéevniikichas
xára xás kun’ávanik.
Nuu ta’ifuchtîimichas pávaa nu’áapunmuti
pávaa Peekxaréeyav pakunkupítihanik; vaa
kun’áamtihaak.
Pámitva kinípeentihat pananutaat îin.
Víri vaa vúra nuu káru vaa tapukin’áamtihara,
pámitva kinípeerat, “Veek ku’áamtiheesh.”
Hûutheesh pananu’ífuth va’ífapuhsa?
The Old People were following the Ikxaréeyavs, the
Spirit People, all the time.
All the People did the same long ago; whatever the
Ikxaréeyavs did, the People did.
And the things that the Spirit People ate, that was all
the Old People ate.
That’s what they were told, “You must eat this kind of
food.
The Spirit People ate salmon and they spooned up acorn
soup, eating salmon along with acorn soup. And they
ate deermeat.”
And the Old People claimed that the Spirit People ate
two meals a day, And so that’s the way the Old People did as
well.
When the white people all came, the Old People said,
“they are eating food poisonous to Indians.
It is poison food, world-come-to-an-end food.”
The working-aged people were the first to eat the
white man’s food.
When they liked it, they really liked it. Then they told
each other, “It’s good tasting food.”
They said, “He never died. I’m going to eat it, that
white man’s bread.”
It was a long time before the Old Men and Old Women
ate the white man’s food.
We are the last ones that know
how the Spirit People used to do, all that they used to eat.
Our mothers told us that.
And even we do not eat anymore,
what they told us before “You must eat this kind.”
And what will they who are raised after us do?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have been so blessed, and there are so many people to thank . . .
First, I want to acknowledge the communities that have so supported me: The
loved ones in the Washington, DC, area who have known me since childhood;
the communities at the Center for Ecoliteracy, the Headlands Center for the Arts,
the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and the Brick Hut Café—thank you so much for
your support over the years. The programmers at KPFA radio in Berkeley who
saved me the cost of an advanced degree, and whose influence is on every page
of this book. (A special thanks to Layna Berman.) The sustainable agriculture
communities here in the Bay Area and nationally— I hope I have made a
contribution to this crucial work. The nourishing traditions communities here in
the Bay Area, as well as all my fellow chapter leaders for the Weston A. Price
Foundation—let’s keep it up! Peter Barnes and the staff and fellow writers at the
Mesa Refuge, where I wrote the bulk of this book—what a gift! The Colley clan
—I am proud to be a part of you. And to the community of Saint Francis
Lutheran Church—my spiritual home, my precious village—I am so glad I
found you.
Thank you to all those writers and thinkers who have so deeply influenced my
work: Jeannette Armstrong, Wendell Berry, Marcus Borg, Caroline Casey,
Annemarie Colbin, Wade Davis, Sally Fallon, Lewis Hyde, Sandor Katz, Helena
Norberg-Hodge, Martín Prechtel, Weston Price, Joel Salatin, Vandana Shiva,
Malidoma Patrice Somé, Maya Tiwari, Marilyn Waring, Alice Waters.
Thanks to my wonderful family: My mother, Dinah, who shared with me her
love of human culture in all its diversity, a deep respect for the traditions of
everyone in the human family, a hunger for the spiritual life, and who took me
traveling—thank you! My father, Patrick, who shared with me his passion for
clear thinking and the written word, and who has always believed I had
something worth saying—thank you! My stepfather, Foster, whose quiet and
steady support of my work has been a great gift to me—thank you! And to the
rest of my extended family, with great gratitude for their presence in my life:
Josh and Ketaki, Brett and Sarah, John and Marie, Lynn, Linda, Bill, Grandma,
my cousins, nieces, and nephews, and those who are with us now only in Spirit
—each one of you is a precious blessing to me. And to O. Z. Tully, with