The Town That Food Saved by Ben Hewitt

From The Week of May 08, 2011

This thoughtful, sober piece from Mr. Hewitt is hardly the first, and certainly won't be the last, to investigate the food problem -- I've reviewed several of these efforts --, but it is, perhaps, the most honest and down-to-earth examination of how far North American society has strayed from real food made by real people. It is not a polemic, nor does it offer sweeping solutions to looming catastrophes. It's an exploration of a town, its rise, its fall and its rebirth as something that may well resemble the face of food in the challenging 21st century.

Mr. Hewitt, a native of Vermont, applies a journalist's sensibilities to this, his endeavor to sound out the sustainability and scalability of local food. The protagonist of his history is Hardwick, Vermont, a boomtown which thrived on granite. When the quarries dried up, jobs and paychecks vanished, plunging the small town into an extended period of hardship and obscurity. It's subsequent rebirth seems due in part to the legacy of the back-to-the-earth movement of the 1960s and 1970s which helped to create, in Hardwick, one of the largest, most successful food co-ops in America. Since then, other localvor businesses have taken root, producing soy beans, cheese, milk and meat for distribution to local citizens, for the tables of local restaurants and for the truckbeds of interstate commerce. Mr. Hewitt, himself an interested party in the movement, interviews the key figures in all these businesses, granting his readers an inside look at the personalities and the passions which shape and drive local food which is powering Hardwick's resurgence.

Mr. Hewitt does a wonderful job illustrating the economic challenges that plague local food. He demonstrates how oversized egos and their outlandish claims have damaged the movement's credibility. But it is his talent for capturing the personalities involved that sets his chronicle apart. From socialist farmers to hard-headed, big-idea entrepreneurs, he captures the men and women who, in their own ways, are trying to find the equation that will make local food work, for everyone and for the planet. For all that he paints an edifying portrait, though, Mr. Hewitt failed to convince me that local food saved Hardwick. The movement has made me want to visit what seems like a remarkable town, but saved it? Seems a bit grandiose.

This book offers more hard-to-swallow facts than it does easy, exciting solutions, but it's this honesty which grants Mr. Hewitt's work authenticity. A must-read for anyone interested in local food, the now and the future. (4/5 Stars)