Michael Pollan hosts book launch for Lentil Underground

Berkeley is ground zero for America’s burgeoning sustainable food movement. So it’s fitting that the J-School will serve as a gathering place for some of the country’s foremost food experts at a book launch event for Liz Carlisle’s new book, Lentil Underground.

J-School professor Michael Pollan will host the event, which will feature a panel discussion with Carlisle and Montana farmer David Olen. The event will include a lentil tasting prepared by Montana farm-to-table chef Claudia Galofre-Krevat, and it will be followed by a reception and book signing in the J-School library.

Carlisle, a Pollan protegee, tells the story of David Oien, a Montana farmer who took a stand against corporate agriculture and seeded his fields with organic lentils. Today, Oien’s family farm is at the forefront of the sustainable farm-to-table food movement, selling lentils to hundreds of natural food stores. Carlisle holds a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Berkeley, and she is a fellow at the Center for Diversified Farming Systems at the school. She is a native of Missoula, Montana.

“Who knew farming a humble legume could be an act of radicalism?” said second-year student Heather Mack (class of ’15). Mack is currently studying with Pollan, and she expects the event to be “a feast for the mind and body as we hear their stories and taste their lentils.”

Pollan is the School’s John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism, and he has become a household name for examining the science of food and making it accessible to a wide audience. He is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and The Botany of Desire. He is a former editor at Harper’s magazine, and he is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker.

The panel discussion will begin at 6:30 in Room 105 of North Gate Hall. The event’s sponsors are Pacific Gourmet, Timeless Seeds, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Veritable Vegetable, Nature’s Path, and Zipcar.