Leaving a legacy where food is medicine and food stories can heal

Tammara Soma and Maggie Cross

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 2025, vol. 14, issue 3

Abstract: First paragraph: If there is one academic book that will make one “hungry for change,” it is Earth to Tables Legacies by Deborah Barndt, Lauren E. Baker, and Alexandra Gelis. This book is full of colors and offers a novel format, as it is a multimedia celebration of stories and visions for a better planet through food systems transformation. Also novel about this book is that it provides resources for the readers to help facilitate dialogue and includes notes on how its readers can participate in an interactive website with videos and photo-essays from diverse “legacies collaborators.” While some of the contents are harrowing, covering issues such as Indigenous residential schools as well as corpo­rate concentration and racism, the approach Barndt, Baker, and Gelis use to bring the reader in is healing, a clear homage to the Indigenous teach­ing that food is medicine. A foreword by Indige­nous scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer emphasizes the transformative power of food, the importance of reciprocity, and honors the Haudenosaunee “Dish with One Spoon” treaty. This particular treaty sets the context for where this project was originally seeded, in Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario. It is a reminder that the metaphorical “dish” (earth) is meant to be shared and that we all use one “spoon,” and there is a responsibility to ensure that there is enough for everyone. As Kimmerer writes in the foreword, “there is only one dish and only one spoon, the same size for everyone. It is a statement about making justice” (p. xii). . . .

Keywords: Food; Security; and; Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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