A Pleasant Trip to Italy and Fattorias

In Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007), she narrates her trip away from her kids and the farm while illustrating the wonderful food in Italy consumed by her and her husband, Steven. She first describes the difficulty of  leaving last minute jobs undone until her arrival by making use of an analogy, comparing women going to the nail shop to her habit of gardening at the last minute. She then uses concrete imagery to describe the meals in Italy and the different courses such as the "secondos" that separates every meal in order to separate the completely different tastes. Lastly, she cites a quote that was on a billboard, "Nostro terra.../ E suo sapore" meaning "you can taste our dirt" (pg. 258). This quote implies the difference between America and Italy, where as in America most of the food is processed and in Italy it is all naturally and organically  grown. Kingsolver's purpose in the entirety of the fifteenth chapter of her novel is to illustrate the food cultural gap between Italy and America in order to spark the idea in the minds of Americans to change their food culture. Her intended audience seems to be Americans who dont eat organic food because Kingsolver want to convince them of the richness and goodness of organic food such as Italian food.

Vocabulary

• Scrupulously- precise

• Succinctly- terse

• Abashed- embarrass

• Consternation- great alarm or dismay

• Stupefaction- overwhelming

• Adamantly- unyielding

Tone

Fascinated, Reminiscent

Rhetorical Strategies

• Analogy: I confess to last-minute projects before big events... On the evening of my once-in-a-lifetime dinner at the White House with president and Mrs. Clinton, my hands were stained slightly purple because I'd been canning olives the day before... some divas get a manicure before a performance; I just try to make sure there's nothing real scary under my fingernails" (pg. 242-243).

• syntax: "His face fell" (pg. 242).

• Allusion: "I knew the Italian vocabulary of classical music, plus that one song from lady and the Tramp." (pg 244).

• Opinion:  "They close their eyes, raise their eyebrows into accent marks, and make sound of acute appreciation. It's fairly sexy" (pg 247).

• Complex sentences: "The farm hotel often has the word fattoria in its name. It sounds like a place designed to make you fat, and i can't argue with that, but it means "farm," deriving from the same root as factory- a place where things get made" (pg. 254).

Discussion

1) Why is there no one in Italy over 300 pounds?

2) Within Kingsolver's listing, can the lists also be explanatory?

3) Along with the habit of eating healthy food in healthy proportions and at a slow pace, would the world be spared from obesity?

Memorable Quote

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. In this case they were kind  enough to dumb down their expectations and patiently unscramble a romance language omelet" (pg. 245).