I really liked this book. I thought it was a great, in depth look at a problem that so many face. One thing that stuck out to me was the authors dislike of the word ‘food desert’ to describe areas like Deanwood. She argues that food desert implies that foodways and communities are static things that don`t adapt or change, like a desert. That term also puts importance on a symptom of systematic racism and income inequality (lack of grocery stores) rather than the cause. Food desert was a term that I had always heard and used and it wasn`t until this reading that I understood its limitations.
When I had learned about people living in a (for lack of a better term) food desert in the past, there had always been a narrative of helplessness. One of the things that I liked about this author is that while explaining the extreme inequalities and injustices faced by the residents of Deanwood, she also focuses on what the residents are doing to take positive control of their environment. She uses the idea of self-reliance to show how the people of Deanwood seek to control and improve their own foodways.
