Farm City

A fascinating read on raising, preparing, and eating turkeys, rabbits and pigs on an “urban farm” in Oakland.

I got this book hoping there would be more about the more vegetarian-friendly aspects of urban farming. There wasn't very much said about raising chickens for eggs or growing vegetables generally. It also did not change my mind about not eating animals. It did, however, convince me that I am not up for raising bees after all.

My two biggest problems with the book: (1) it's just generally badly written. Carpenter throws in quotes from other books like she's writing a college term paper and has to meet a word count requirement. She writes sentences like this: “Inside, cradled by white plastic, lay a liver the size of a placenta.” The size of what? Oh, a placenta! Thanks, that helps.

(2) She does that thing white people do where other white people are described without physical description, but with the underlying default assumption that they are white; non-white people are conspicuously the only ones who ever get a physical description. One notable exception is Sheila, the butcher, who is uncharitably described as looking like a “prostitute.” That just rubbed me the wrong way.

Otherwise, it is interesting to read about what goes into raising, killing, and preparing animals to be eaten.