Eating The Landscape Book Review

Meghan Ruginski

ENGL 102 - 037

Prof. Santos

13 March 2018

Eating The Landscape Book Evaluation

Eating The Landscape by Enrique Salmon is about different cultures in the United States and northern Mexico, and their connections with food and identity. Enrique Salmon is an indigenous ethnobiologist and he goes to different American Indian farmers, and has them share their stories. Their stories include things about their culture, types of common foods that they grow and eat, and how their environment affects those foods, and the traditional stories that are told through generations. Through all of these stories the author provides his own experiences and basically gives the idea that a cultures surroundings affects everything in their life.

The strengths of the book are that it gives a lot of evidence to the points that the author is making, and talks about many different interesting ideas. The University of Arizona Press says that “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” One example that really touches on each of these is the difference between the an indigenous diet, and a more modern diet. An indigenous diet is much healthier, and more sustainable. “Starches found in modern foods such as white bread and potatoes break down quickly and precipitate sharp and high levels of sugars in the blood, which can spark diabetes” (78). The differences are due to the environment, and cultural identity, and how different things are more normal. 

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone that would like to know more about different American Indian cultures, and how food affects them. Someone who is just looking for something fun to read may not enjoy this book. One of its weaknesses is that some of the chapters are very long, and are very detailed, so it may be hard to keep their attention if they are not fully interested in the subject matter.

Works Cited

Salmon, Enrique. Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience. University of Arizona Press, 2012.

“The University of Arizona Press.” Eating the Landscape , The University of Arizona, uapress.arizona.edu/book/eating-the-landscape.