Full Moon Feast

Reviews

Holiday Reading

The Green Guide
Review by The Green Guide Staff
December 13, 2006

I've never considered myself much of a "foodie." When I was in college, I learned to enjoy cooking, but more as an activity that allowed me to divert my attention from the pressures of academia without feeling like I was wasting time. Food was just a byproduct I took for granted because it was always there, in some burned or multilated form or another.

It's that same perspective, widely held by many Americans, that Jessica Prentice wanted to reverse with her treatise on seasonality, Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection. The book is built upon the 13 moons of lunar calendars used by societies and cultures worldwide, for instance the Lakota people's Moon of Making Fat or the ancient Celtic Milk Moon. Within each moon, Prentice explores the traditions and ancestral context of the foods relevant to that season, wanting to provide a greater appreciation of times when certain foods are abundant and others aren't simply "there"—a notion hard to comprehend given our country's mass-produced industrial food supply.

And she very aptly succeeds. Pointing out that even milk and honey have their respective moons, or seasons, it's hard for me to approach any meal now without undergoing some paradigm shift. After all, why should I sweeten my oatmeal with tropical honey in mid-winter when maple syrup from just across the state line has reached its peak flavor? And why not try my hand at home-brewed root beer in the late summer Wort Moon, when my English ancestors traditionally harvested their herbs? It's in my blood!

Seasonality and locality remain Prentice's primary themes throughout the book (she's also co-founder of Locavores and the Eat Local Challenge), and she's able to make numerous subtle connections between conventional eating habits and the intrinsic values, both taste- and health-wise, of changing them to fit season and locale, all under the guise of connecting readers with their own ancestries and traditions. To help us out, she lists 13 sources for whatever food she happens to be focusing on—13 types of eggs in the Egg Moon, 13 sources for healthy fats in the Moon of Making Fat, 13 traditional ways of preserving fruits and vegetables in early winter's Snow Moon—as well as easy-to-make seasonal recipes developed throughout her years as a professional chef.

Review

Weston Price Foundation
Review by Sally Fallon
August 24, 2006

Part autobiography, part recipe book and part philosophical treatise on traditional customs and food ways, Full Moon Feast is an informative adventure through a year of full moons--from the Hunger Moon in late winter, to the Wolf Moon at the end of the year.

Each moon provides a platform for Prentice to expand on the subject of food, society and health. In the chapter on the Sap or Sugar Moon, which occurs when the sap begins to rise in the trees, Prentice discusses real whole sweeteners from maple, sorghum and palm, versus white sugar, a sugar that is addictive and leads to a kind of slavery of poor health. Discussion of sugar leads to a natural segue into the work of Weston Price.

Many interesting facts emerge throughout the text. For example, as the outrage over slavery grew among northern settlers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, maple sugar came to be seen as a socially responsible alternative to the refined cane sugar being imported from the Caribbean. Prentice quotes from a 1903 farmer's almanac: "Prepare for making maple sugar, which is more pleasant and patriotic than that ground by the hand of slavery and boiled down by the heat of misery."

In the chapter on the Milk Moon, we get more on Weston Price via a discussion of raw versus pasteurized milk, followed by wise musings on the sacred feminine as embodied in the dairy cow.

The Wort Moon introduces us to wort cunning--knowledge of worts (that is, herbs) and treats us to delicious lacto-fermented beverages based on summer herbs like verbena, sassafras, yarrow and rose hips.

In the Corn Moon, Prentice explores the subject of grains and bread and looks at the harsh legacy of GMO seeds on local communities and sustainable farms. And in the Blood Moon, she treats us to a profound discussion on the subject of meat eating and vegetarianism.

Full Moon Feast provides a wonderful way to introduce the concepts of traditional diets in a non-preachy way, and in a wider context than simply that of health and fitness. Prentice understands that the way we eat, the way we farm and treat our animals, the way we cook, serve as metaphors for our life and culture.

The icing is a collection of wonderful recipes, from maple roasted nuts to pot roast to after dinner mints.

Full Moon Feast is a classic. Don't miss it!

Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, and Eat Fat, Lose Fat (both with Mary G. Enig, PhD), as well as of numerous articles on the subject of diet and health. She is President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk. She is the mother of four healthy children raised on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

Review

Midwest Review of Books
June 5, 2006

Full Moon Feast: Food And The Hunger For Connection by Jessica Prentice is an engaging guide to the beautifully intricate art of culinary creations in synchronization with the cycles of an agrarian calendar. Accurately following the thirteen lunar cycles in periods of their yearly contributions and celebrations, Full Moon Feast knowledgeably explores varying moons cycles with seasonally appropriate recipes ranging from Blood Moon Swedish Meatballs; Stir-fry of Pork and Vegetables with Ginger; and Beef Broth; to Egg Moon's Avocado and Hard-Cooked Eggs with a Lemony Dressing; Stracciatella (Roman Egg Drop Soup); and Spring Tonic Nettle Soup. A unique original concept in cookbooks, Full Moon Feast is very highly recommended as a concise and "kitchen cook friendly" guide to the full-moon celebrations through healthy dining.