A review by cnoelle
Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget by Leda Meredith

5.0

This is a very practical, hands-on guide to actually eating locally sourced foods! Many of the other local-food books are a memoir of the experiments of the author, intended to inspire you towards eating local. That's all well and good, but most of the time those authors are not only getting paid to do this (because hey....they're journalists!) but they are also upper-middle class citizens with a good background knowledge in food systems and culinary or nutrition studies. So yeah, I may be inspired by your story but I have no idea how to take those lofty ideals and integrate them into my more common lifestyle. The Locavore's handbook walks you through what it actually takes to eat local. Leda did an amazing job of covering all the barriers to eating local she could think of, such as single households, lack of space, low income, and inexperience with basic cooking and food preservation techniques. Each area she covers is by no means a complete resource; she could probably easily write a book on each topic instead of just the chapter she allotted. But it does a great job of showing that local food is not as exotic or difficult as you might think when you read some of the other books on the subject. (Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan comes to mind!)

A fantastic resource for anyone interested in incorporating more local foods into their diet, but especially for those who have no idea where to start!