I was fully prepared not to like The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food by Ben Hewitt. As I’ve been learning more about local food, I have realized that there are no easy answers, and the title of this book makes it sound as though a town was on the brink of collapse (think Detroit) and suddenly everybody discovered farmer’s markets and learned to grow their own food and buy $20 a pound cheese to put in their canvas reusable bags and lives happily ever after, occasionally boycotting GMOs and picketing Monsanto and the USDA. The End.

Luckily that’s not what this book is about.

From the publisher’s website:

For nearly a century, the blue–collar community of Hardwick, Vermont, has known hard times. The town’s median income runs 25 percent below the state average; its unemployment rate, 40 percent higher. But over the past three years—amid an economic crisis that threatens to cripple small businesses and privately owned farms across the nation—Hardwick has jump–started its economy with a stunning number of food–based businesses built by a group of young, innovative entrepreneurs who support each other by sharing advice, equipment, and capital. The Town That Food Saved is rich with appealing, colorful characters, from the optimistic upstarts creating a new agricultural model to the long–established farmers wary of the rapid change in the region. Ben Hewitt, a journalist and Vermonter, delves deeply into the repercussions of this groundbreaking approach to growing food, both its astounding successes and potential limitations.

Lively, funny, and candid, The Town That Food Saved tells the fascinating story of an unassuming community and its extraordinary determination to build a vibrant local food system unlike anything else in America. Hewitt’s thoughtful examination of the future of our food system is grounded in ideas that will revolutionize the way we eat—and quite possibly the way we live.

What I like best about this book is that it’s an easy read. It includes facts and figures, but it reads like a novel. You are introduced to the town right away, and the quirky people. You can imagine yourself in the town, getting to know the place. You meet the movers and shakers, the slick talkers. You learn all about the organic seed company and how it was founded on agricultural roots and the expensive cheese place that has come into fruition. You read about the evils of 99 cent ground beef. A very rosy picture is painted indeed. But just as you’re about to roll your eyes, Hewitt starts to address the issues that those of us who have thought for any length of time about the scalability and accessibility of local food have considered.

I don’t want to give away the ending or conclusions, but let’s just say that if you’re annoyed with the upper middle class veneer that’s been put on local food, ignoring the regular folk, you’ll love this book. You will get to visit the local butchers, the farmers, the hippies, the agripreneurs. Those who can and can’t afford to eat at the locally-sourced restaurant. You won’t be disappointed.

Disclosure: The publisher provided me with a free review copy of this book. The fact that it was free in no way affected my review of this book.

Kelly was the winner of the giveaway!

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