Home Grown Indiana

A delectable consumers' guide to local foods in Indiana

A visual feast of the Midwest's homegrown bounty In this splendidly illustrated book, food writer and self-described farm groupie Janine MacLachlan embarks on a tour of seasonal markets and farmstands throughout the Midwest, sampling local flavors from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. She conducts delicious research as she meets farmers, tastes their food, and explores how their businesses thrive in the face of an industrial food supply. She tells the stories of a pair of farmers growing specialty crops on a few acres of northern Michigan for just a few months out of the year, an Ohio cattle farm that has raised heritage beef since 1820, and a Minnesota farmer who tirelessly champions the Jimmy Nardello sweet Italian frying pepper. Along the way, she savors vibrant red carrots, slurpy peaches, vast quantities of specialty cheeses, and some of the tastiest pie to cross anyone's lips. Informed by debates about eating local, seasonal crops, organic farming, sanitation, and biodiversity, Farmers' Markets of the Heartland tantalizes with special recipes from farm-friendly chefs and dozens of luscious color photographs that will inspire you to harvest the homegrown flavors in your own neighborhood.

"... a literary pilgrimage as well as a spiritual one." --Indianapolis Star "... a powerful statement about the religious diversity of America... an indispensable volume." --National Catholic Reporter The more mobile and rootless and virtual we become as a culture, the more we long for vital connections to the places in which we find ourselves. The editors, photographers, poets and writers in this volume have sought to grapple with the issue of place and spirit in a typical American city at the end of the 20th century: Indianapolis, Indiana. They focus on the connections, or lack thereof, between the seen and the unseen in a place historically significant for its typicality.