Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

by Jessica Prentice

Praise for the Book

"Closesr to Walden Pond than The Joy of Cooking, Full Moon Feast puts aside what isn’t important to realize a more fundamental relationship to food, one that weaves history, anthropology, folk life, myth, medicine, a personal journey and, of course, food itself into a whole."

"Full Moon Feast is the perfect title for this surprising and ultimately hopeful book. It is full of fascinating information and lived wisdom about the plants and animals, fish and birds we consume and how we are misusing the planet we share with them. Prentice assigns a collage of traditional names to the thirteen moons of the lunar year, then leads the reader through the seasons, using ideas the moon's names suggest to introduce a rich stew of fascinating food lore topped off by recipes that illustrate the chapter's themes. Like a memorable meal, Full Moon Feast is convivial, stimulating, comforting, at times piquant, and always deeply satisfying. A feast indeed!"

"Jessica Prentice's far-ranging culinary explorations bring us back to the rhythms of seasonal being. Drawing upon mythology, history, and contemporary struggles, Full Moon Feast reminds us of ancient cultural wisdom, encourages us to deepen our connections to the sources of our food, and invites us to make these seasonal rhythms our own."

"Fired by the abuses of modern industrialism, this poet-chef tells her life story as a vision-quest for a world of harmony and connectedness, which she finds in the voices of traditional cultures past and present, condensed in poems, myths, foods, feasts and fasts, tuned to the rhythm of the seasons. As we follow her lunar calendar from Hunger Moon to Wolf Moon, we discover in recipes for Nettle Soup, Sourdough Crackers, Yarrow Ale, new uses and new meanings in the gifts of earth and sea. Meanings multiply in a work that is not a quick bite, but a vertical tasting to be savored slowly."

"I've long been a seasonal cook: no tomatoes in February, no parsnips in August, no asparagus in November. But the book's lyrical story-telling describes a whole 'nother way of eating, of considering, of trusting food."