Category: Nonfiction

The third part in The Third Plate is about the sea. The all important topic of the declining populations of various fish in the oceans is discussed throughout. We learn that ultimately, the reason that the sea is being emptied of fish is because of chefs, not because of fishermen. Chefs decide what people eat because they are the ones cooking the food. If a talented and famous chef decides that a certain type of fish is the best fish to eat, people will want it. The people will not want to eat types of fish that chefs don’t cook or fish that they say are rubbish. So in order for the fishermen to make a living, they need to catch the types of fish that the chefs want. This means that specific breeds are being overfished because the demand for them is so high. Any fish that are caught that are not the fish that the chefs want are passed over, tossed back into the sea, because the fishermen simply cannot sell them. There is no market for these fish. 

The fish that Americans eat are limited, most people can name them, salmon, bass, tilapia. But there are so many more different types of fish out there, and plenty of them are just as delicious as the highly sought after ones, such as bluefin tuna. The author talks about a seafood meal he had in Spain, cooked by the chef Angel Leon, and he said it was a meal that changed the way he thought about food. This meal was made from fish and fish parts that most chefs wouldn’t even consider using in their dishes. While I was reading, I was given the impression that most chefs will never consider creating cuisine with ‘garbage’ fish, because they have it in their heads that certain breeds taste bad and other breeds are supreme. I feel as though a lot of people are missing out on incredible food. I feel sorrowful over the thought that many fish may go extinct soon because of the mindset of professional chefs. 

We are also given a brief lesson on the edge effect, which has to do with the delicate ecosystem where the land meets the sea. When we mess around with this area that is closest to the shore, we are messing with the most important part of the ocean. Fish farming does just this, as most fish farms are located in the edge area. Fish farms don’t even do what you would think they do, by that I mean keep us from fishing the ocean. In order for the fish in the farms to grow to the size they need to be for the market, you need to feed them. The food for the farmed fish comes in the form of smaller fish, which are taken out of the ocean. 

I feel like I’m going on a bit of a rant. I’m no activist, but reading about what is happening to our oceans scared me. 

I’m going to end here by saying that you really need to read Part 3, not just to learn about what is happening in our oceans, but about what a few good farmers and chefs are doing to try to save the environment and the plants and animals that live in it.

Part 2 of the book focuses on land, particularly the food we eat that walks on it. The main focus of this section is to show us the importance of small farms and farming communities, places where people live mostly off of what they can grow and the natural resources surrounding them. This is the type of living that is best for our planet, but overall we are much too focused on industrialized farming and producing as much livestock as we can for consumption. The author mostly focuses on geese, chickens and pigs here. 

We meet Eduardo Sousa, a farmer from Spain, who produces some of the most expensive foie gras in the entire world, around 700$ for one goose liver. Foie gras is expensive to begin with, because geese are not easy to keep, the birds need to eat a lot in a short period of time to get fat, and the fact that they are often force fed is cruel and has meant that raising geese solely for their livers or even selling foie gras is banned in a lot of places. Eduardo’s product is so expensive because his birds are not getting fat by shoving food down their throats, they are free range, they eat what they want, when they want. 

Why is it that his free roaming geese are getting fatter than the geese being force fed? Simply, the goose that is raised in a factory does not know how to feed itself. The same goes for geese that live on farms or within fences, even though they may be surrounded by grass and plants, their diet is usually also being supplemented with some grain from the farmer. The goose knows that someone is going to deliver its food, and therefore it only eats when the food comes. A free range goose eats whenever it wants, because it has to be able to feed itself. 

The bird’s freedom does come at a cost. They are more at risk of being killed by a predator. Their eggs are also more likely to be picked off. But the birds are happier, which also happens to produce better flavor. Animals that are stressed during their lives or right before their deaths produce less tasty meat. Eduardo also believes in humanely putting his birds down, he lets them make their own way into the room where he gases them to sleep. This isn’t exactly pleasant conversation, but if foie gras is banned because of the cruelty involved to the geese, imagine what the lives of the majority of those birds is like, and how terrible the end must be. 

Other than geese, the author does go into one of the most famous exports of Spain, jamon iberico. If you want to learn more about the region where Spain’s famous acorn eating, black pigs are from, you’ll get to read about one of the families that raises them. You’ll also find out that other rare and delicious foods come from this same area, but most people don’t know about them because of the celebrity of the aged ham. 

There is so much more I could write about this part, but I want to leave some things for you to discover yourself. It was just as interesting and informative as the first part of the book, and I have a feeling the next part will be equally as engaging.

I’m only a quarter of the way through this book, and I am already willing to give it great praise. If you by any chance read my reviews of Gulp by Mary Roach, decided to pick up that book, read it, and enjoyed it, you would probably enjoy this book too.

The introduction briefly discusses the farm to table movement, which is a way of creating dishes based on what you can get nearby. We are also introduced to the huge problem in our world, that we need to rethink that way food is grown and animals are raised, if we want to end the ravaging upon our planet and heal it so that it can survive.

The first of four parts in this book is about soil. In the first chapter, the author introduces us to Klaas Marten, an organic farmer. Klaas used to spray his fields with chemicals, but something happened to him one day that made him stop. 

In the next chapter, we learn about the most abundant crop in the United States and the world, grains. Grains surpass vegetables by a multiple of 12 in quantity, but even though they are more plentiful, vegetables are more sought after and consumed in greater quantities. People will spend the extra time at a supermarket to select the perfect piece of produce, but they will just grab any loaf of bread. The way the author describes how people will put the extra effort into picking the perfect vegetable and just throw it together with a bread that they don’t give nearly as much thought towards made me want to start baking my own bread. 

Chapter 3 goes into the history of wheat. I know this might sound boring, but reading about wheat was more interesting to me than anything I learned in any history class I was obligated to take in public school. I learned that until 1825, when the Erie canal opened, most people were eating wheat that was grown close to their homes. I learned about the structure of wheat, the nutritional parts of it, the difference between stone milled and roller milled wheat, which one is better for you, and which one has more flavor, which one has a long shelf life, and which one can turn bad in just a few days. 

Weeds are a big topic in the next chapter. They are not just undesirable plants, a weed is anything that grows where you don’t want it to grow. And weeds sprout when the existing plants are not healthy. There is an easy way to get rid of weeds, and that is to make sure that the plants you want to grow are getting everything they need. You don’t need to spray your garden with chemicals, you need to make sure the soil isn’t missing anything. Easily enough, the type of weeds that are growing in your garden will tell you what the soil is lacking. 

The relationship between animals and farming is discussed in chapter 5. When farms were small, livestock would walk around freely, eating and producing waste which would in turn provide nutrients back into the soil. Large farms need machinery and chemicals to survive, simply because they are too big for the farmers to know enough about what’s going on. The animals that once roamed free were brought indoors and the soil ended up losing the nutrients.

The final chapter of Part 1 talks about greenhouse plants and why if one plant gets sick, the rest will soon follow. We also learn why organic food tastes better and the relationship between obesity in America and depleted soil.