“This is a loving and necessary book about our future: a possible world of connections with the earth, with the spirit, with the food we eat, and among human beings. Black’s sensitive interviews, her narrators’ creative lives, and the eloquent photographs are one powerful message of hope.”
Alessandro Portelli, author of They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History
“Kate Black’s tender portraits of Kentucky gardeners read like good visits with future friends. Although these compelling Kentuckians’ backgrounds and ancestries vary widely, they have in common their striking commitment to growing their own food. Why do they garden? Their answers make each story rich and satisfying.”
Rona Roberts, host of the Savoring Kentucky blog and author of Classic Kentucky Meals
“Diversity throughout the book highlights our collective connection to food, land and the human experience.… Each tale is just intimate enough for the reader to feel a connection to the gardener, but brief enough to anticipate the next.… Row by Row evolves into a gardening manual, without giving a single instruction. Within the stories are secrets and inspirations that readers can apply to their own gardens, even if they’re digging for the first time.”
LEO Weekly
“Black’s commitment to listening to the oral histories cuts through the romanticism of much garden writing and the polarizing language that can afflict our food conversations in the United States.”
Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, author of A Mess of Greens: Southern Gender and Southern Food and lead author of Republic of Barbecue: Stories beyond the Brisket
For two and a half years, Katherine J. Black crisscrossed Kentucky, interviewing home vegetable gardeners from a rich variety of backgrounds. Row by Row: Talking with Kentucky Gardeners is the result, a powerful compilation of testimonies on the connections between land, people, culture, and home.
The people profiled here share a Kentucky backdrop, but their life stories, as well as their gardens, have as many colors, shapes, and tastes as heirloom tomatoes do. Black interviewed those who grow in city backyards, who carve out gardens from farmland, and who have sprawling plots in creek bottoms and former pastures. Many of the gardeners in Row by Row speak eloquently about our industrialized food system’s injuries to the land, water, and health of people. But more often they talk about what they are doing in their gardens to reverse this course.
Row by Row is as sure to appeal to historians, food studies scholars, and sustainability advocates as it is to gardeners and local food enthusiasts. These eloquent portraits, drawn from oral histories and supplemented by Deirdre Scaggs’ color photographs, form a meditation on how gardeners make sense of their lives through what they grow and how they grow it.
Katherine J. Black has been raising gardens since she was a child. She served as the curator of the University of Kentucky’s Appalachian Collection from 1986 until her retirement in 2013. More info →
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Paperback
978-0-8040-1162-4
Retail price: $24.95,
T.
Release date: October 2015
59 illus.
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208 pages
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6 × 9 in.
Rights: World
Hardcover
978-0-8040-1161-7
Retail price: $49.95,
S.
Release date: October 2015
59 illus.
·
208 pages
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6 × 9 in.
Rights: World
Electronic
978-0-8040-4066-2
Release date: October 2015
59 illus.
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208 pages
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Rights: World
Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste
Heirloom Seed Savers in Appalachia
By Bill Best
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Foreword by Howard L. Sacks
The Brown Goose, the White Case Knife, Ora’s Speckled Bean, Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter—these are just a few of the heirloom fruits and vegetables you’ll encounter in Bill Best’s remarkable history of seed saving and the people who preserve both unique flavors and the Appalachian culture associated with them.
Food Studies · Nature | Environmental Conservation & Protection · Gardening · Essays in Horticulture · Appalachia · United States · Ohio and Regional
Visions of Loveliness
Great Flower Breeders of the Past
By Judith M. Taylor
Gardeners of today take for granted the many varieties of geraniums, narcissi, marigolds, roses, and other beloved flowers for their gardens. Few give any thought at all to how this incredible abundance came to be or to the people who spent a good part of their lives creating it. These breeders once had prosperous businesses and were important figures in their communities but are only memories now. They also could be cranky and quirky.
The Locavore’s Kitchen
A Cook’s Guide to Seasonal Eating and Preserving
By Marilou K. Suszko
In more than 150 recipes that highlight seasonal flavors, Marilou K. Suszko inspires cooks to keep local flavors in the kitchen year round. From asparagus in the spring to pumpkins in the fall, Suszko helps readers learn what to look for when buying seasonal homegrown or locally grown foods as well as how to store fresh foods, and which cooking methods bring out fresh flavors and colors.
Cookbooks · Nature · Food Studies · Ohio and Regional · Guidebook
Catching Stories
A Practical Guide to Oral History
By Donna M. DeBlasio, Charles F. Ganzert, David H. Mould, Stephen H. Paschen, and Howard L. Sacks
A clear and comprehensive introduction for those with little or no experience in planning or undertaking oral history projects.
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