The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved

Inside America’s Underground Food Movements

By Liz Crain

April 9, 2007

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Title

• The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved

Author

• Sandor Ellix Katz

Publisher

• Chelsea Green Publishing Company

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In his second book (after Wild Fermentation), Katz delves into traditional small-scale food production. Highly impressionistic in style, The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved spends less time in Katz’s community kitchen and more time with a colorful cast of folks who are reviving and redefining social ferment through real (as opposed to highly industrialized and processed) food.

Katz profiles people who are bucking the system by breaking or skirting the law: baking bread and sharing it with friends, making food for the homeless, selling raw milk, and scavenging in dumpsters for perfectly edible food waste. He also lingers over several “epicures of the obscure” — roadkill foragers, Fruitarians, Primal Diet folks, and instinctos, among others.

This highly researched book contains “Action and Information Resources” at the end of every chapter, which help readers research and participate in a wide array of grassroots organizations. Katz also dollops his book with personal recipes for homemade, healthy foods, ranging from sassafras tea and roots beer to head cheese and steamed stinging nettles.

With The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, Katz has transformed his passion for wholesome, healing, homemade foods into a much wider, more socially relevant manifesto that encourages readers to take back community control of food. His book runs deep, with footnotes aplenty, but the tone is his own: playful, curious, and impassioned.

Liz Crain is a writer in Portland, Oregon.