Harvest: Field Notes from a Far-Flung Pursuit of Real Food

by Max Watman

Overview

Max Watman’s compulsively readable memoir of his dogged quest to craft meals from scratch.

After an epiphany caused by a harrowing bite into a pink-slime burger, Max Watman resolves to hunt, fish, bake, butcher, preserve, and pickle. He buys a thousand-pound-steer—whom he names Bubbles—raises chickens, gardens, and works to transform his small-town home into a gastronomic paradise. In this compulsively readable memoir, Watman records his experiments and adventures as he tries to live closer to the land and the source of his food.

A lively raconteur, Watman draws upon his youth in rural Virginia with foodie parents—locavores before that word existed—his time cooking in restaurants, and his love of the kitchen.

Amid trial and experiment, there is bound to be heartbreak. Despite a class in cheese making from a local expert, his carefully crafted Camembert resembles a chalky hockey puck. Much worse, his beloved hens—"the girls," as he calls them—are methodically attacked by a varmint, and he falls into desperate measures to defend them. Finally, he loses track of where exactly Bubbles the steer is.

Watman perseveres, and his story culminates in moments of redemption: a spectacular prairie sunset in North Dakota; watching 10,000 pheasants fly overhead; eating fritters of foraged periwinkles and seawater risotto; beachside with his son; a tub of homemade kimchi that snaps and crunches with fresh, lively flavor well after the last harvest.

With infectious enthusiasm, Watman brings the reader to the furthest corners of culinary exploration. He learns that the value of living from scratch is in the trying. With a blend of down-home spirit and writing panache, he serves up a delectable taste of farm life—minus the farm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393350838
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/09/2015
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Max Watman is the author of Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine and Race Day: A Spot on the Rail with Max Watman. Raised in the mountains of Virginia and the kitchens of Washington DC, he currently lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and son.

Table of Contents

1 Yellow Tag 879 1

2 Living with Girls 19

3 The King of All Cheeses 37

4 Dakota 63

5 Grow Your Own 87

6 A Visit with John 110

7 To Catch What Cannot Be Seen 123

8 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 145

9 From a Crooked Angle 159

10 Bubbles Gets the Gun 174

11 Harvest 190

12 A Cow Is Not Always Black and White 209

Editorial Reviews

"While I was growing up on our family farm near Lyon, I learned the importance of seasonal produce and fully utilized livestock at an early age. Max Watman’s witty and vivid accounts of producing farm-fresh products such as cheese and preserves in a modern world brings back fond memories and had me laughing throughout."

Daniel Boulud

Among the many things to like about Watman's new book is his exuberant, unapologetically amateur spirit…His long-suffering wife and friends are used to his harebrained schemes but love him anyway, and soon we do too. How can we not be drawn to a suburbanite who perseveres in living "as if I were on a farm but without the farm"?

The New York Times Book Review - Dawn Drzal

12/02/2013
Watman (Chasing the White Dog) shares his knowledge on how to make cheese, kill or catch your dinner, grow tomatoes or find edible plants in your neighborhood, and along the way turns his triumphs and tribulations into endearing stories that have a hint of expertise and a big dose of seat-of-your-pants gusto. The main reoccurring storyline running through the book—Watman purchasing his own 675-lb. steer (nicknamed Bubbles)—is a perfect example of Watman’s go-big-or-go-home approach to taking control of not only where his family’s food comes from but also how it is prepared. Watman’s self-deprecating, conversational prose is a refreshing antidote to some foodie writers who take themselves too seriously, and he makes it clear that this isn’t just about one year of doing these things but a true life change makes his adventures all the more poignant. Also, his motto to “Fail again, fail better” should be a great motivator for those who have been too afraid to make their own charcuterie or shoot the raccoon eating their chickens, and demonstrates why this book succeeds not only as a memoir but also as a work to inspire everyone to try new things regardless of expertise. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Exuberant … [Harvest] is inspirational."

Dawn Drzal

"On the surface, Harvest is about food …[but] a deeper examination reveals that Harvest is also about family and friendship and the role of food in those relationships."

Washington Independent Review of Books - Shannon Morgan

"Max Watman has the descriptive and narrative power to make the outer limits of the food world seem both magnificently rare and dangerously explorable and appealing. Harvest finds the sweet overlap between our gustatory appetite and our hunger to keep turning the pages of a great story."

Matt Lee and Ted Lee

"[Watman] captures the swing and momentum of food preparation, the Zen of hunting and fishing, and the sweet, quirky joys of family life ."

The Wall Street Journal - Eugenia Bone

2014-02-06
Hudson Valley writer Watman (Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine, 2010) charts his adventures in sourcing or producing whole foods in more direct ways, without the polemical emphasis on locavore movements, environmental politics, corporate agriculture or related issues. The author cites a few choice quotes from other writers, including Aaron Bobrow-Strain (White Bread, 2012) and Betty Fussell (Raising Steaks, 2008), which add background to the concern for remedying the nation's food, and features passages that detail problems such as the use of bisphenol A in the canning process. However, his own stance is that food should "be fun" and not a cause for stress. Raised in a family that worked in a culinary cottage industry, Watman details a different project in each chapter. From a failed effort at producing Camembert to the pleasures of raising chickens despite their eventual deaths, the thrill of hunting pheasants in North Dakota to grinding his own sausages and planting chili peppers, food has served as a pathway for enjoyment. For readers intrigued by personal back-to-the-land cooking journeys, Watman is honest in his admission of the "deep foodie DIY production" that entailed difficult ingredients and unusual forays. Each attempt, however, remained grounded in his desire to broaden his family's palate with less commercially processed fare; there is little sense of advocating for broader-scale changes, nor moralizing on the eating habits of others. In the strongest chapters, Watman weaves childhood memories, such as making cornichons, into accounts of his more current experiments. Watman's mistakes and triumphs have served as steppingstones on an impressively determined course. With an essayist's flair for careful description, this is an entertaining, if not eye-opening, look at one man's passion for the pleasures of the table. Recommended as a congenial overview of homespun ideals.

Kirkus Reviews