As Timmermeister continues to describe the variety of items and animals available on his farm, we gain more insight on how things such as raw milk, meat, cream, and vegetables are produced. "Almost all of the food I produce -- as detailed in the following chapters on vegetables, fowl and pigs, as well as the previous chapters on honey, fruit, and dairy -- goes into the seasonal dishes I serve every Sunday" (178). The farm may have started off as an experiment to understand various aspects of farming for Timmermeister but as he expands his farm, he gains understanding of the various processes and difficulties in obtaining what later appears on a plate. For example, selling milk is not easy, it requires a license and a process of pasteurizing; he learns that he had been illegally selling raw milk to his neighbors. However, with the growth of the farm, we see him find an ultimate destination: Sunday dinners.
I love how the book is tied together with the Sunday dinners or Cookhouse dinners, as Timmermeister puts it. For this reason, Chapter 15, The Table, was one of my favorite chapters in the book. We see that Timmermeister tries to only use items produced on the farm as part of his recipes for Sunday dinners. Knowing that most of the items are seasonal, he establishes variety by making slight alterations in the ingredients for the recipes on the menu. Through these dinners, he is able to share the knowledge and process of growing or creating the food on the table.
"Food is what brings us together" (308). We often take good food for granted. We may remember the good and bad memories we had over a meal, but we often forget the meal itself. This book provides a good foundation for understanding where and how that meal came to be; some of it is interesting and the other may be a bit disturbing but overall, it is enlightening journey.
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