By Daniel Philippon. University of Virginia Press, 2024.

At turns heartfelt and witty, accessible and engaging, The Farmer, the Gastronome, and the Chef explores how Wendell Berry, Carlo Petrini, and Alice Waters have changed America’s relationship with food over the past fifty years. Daniel Philippon weighs the legacy of each of these writers and activists while planting and harvesting vegetables in central Wisconsin, speaking with growers and food producers in northern Italy, and visiting with chefs and restaurateurs in southeastern France. Following Berry, Petrini, and Waters in pursuit of his own “ideal meal,” Philippon considers what a sustainable food system might look like and what role writing can play in making it a reality.

Warning of the dangers of “agristalgia,” Philippon instead advocates for a diverse set of practices he calls “elemental cooking,” which would define sustainable food from farm to table, while also acknowledging the importance of seeking social justice throughout the food system. A rigorous yet generous appraisal of three central figures in the sustainable food movement, “The Farmer, the Gastronome, and the Chef” demonstrates how the written word has the power to change our world for the better, one ideal meal at a time.

Daniel J. Philippon is Associate Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and the author of Conserving Words: How American Nature Writers Shaped the Environmental Movement.