book review

Anna Cripanuk

3/16/18

English 102

Book Review

Eating the Landscape

    The book, Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience, which is non-fiction book by Enrique Salmon is an excellent read that we have just recently finished for our English 102 class. In this informative book, the author Salmon provides us with knowledge about the importance of farming and the food that we eat. Salmon also tries to educate and inform his audience about the importance of maintaining the indigenous ways through food, ceremonies, and stories passed down from generation to generation.

Enrique Salmon is the head of the American Indian Studies program at Cal State University East Bay and has descended from the Rarámuri, an indigenous people from Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico. His lineage serves at the touchstone for this episodic volume, each chapter of which introduces the reader to a different mode of traditional land stewardship. Salmon brings us to the Pueblos of New Mexico, where a former Native leader fears that his people’s youth are “not returning to farm the dry and barren fields” that are their birthright. Salmon shares his knowledge on culture through great detail on indigenous foods as well as farming traditions, and how deeply connected food and people are and about many different native American and Indian cultures spread around Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico.

Growing up very conscious about what is in the foods I am consuming, I took a deeper interest in the book when Salmon began talking about Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO’s. A GMO, is a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism whose genetic makeup has been modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering or transgenic technology. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional cross breeding methods. “GMOs on a large-scale agribusiness decrease soil productivity as a result of farmers having to use Monsanto-based fertilizers that drain the microorganisms from once fertile lands… GMO plants are designed to release toxins for specific pests, which would decrease the harvest.” (152) Salmon was concerned about how they are affecting the way natural traditions of farmers around the globe and the harmful outcome of GMOs on the soil and naturally growing, unmodified crops.

Overall I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to learn about culture, nature, and food. Salmon does an excellent job of providing details and information on both subjects, and overall was an interesting read. “In this fascinating personal narrative, Salmón focuses on an array of indigenous farmers who uphold traditional agricultural practices in the face of modern changes to food systems such as extensive industrialization and the genetic modification of food crops. Despite the vast cultural and geographic diversity of the region he explores, Salmón reveals common themes: the importance of participation in a reciprocal relationship with the land, the connection between each group’s cultural identity and their ecosystems, and the indispensable correlation of land consciousness and food consciousness. Salmón shows that these collective philosophies provide the foundation for indigenous resilience as the farmers contend with global climate change and other disruptions to long-established foodways. This resilience, along with the rich stores of traditional ecological knowledge maintained by indigenous agriculturalists, Salmón explains, may be the key to sustaining food sources for humans in years to come, (Review).