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Gary Paul Nabhan

    Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally celebrated nature writer, seed saver, and sustainable agriculture activist. His work deeply explores the connection between people and their local environments, emphasizing the importance of biodiversity and traditional agricultural practices. Nabhan is recognized for his pioneering efforts in the local food movement, advocating for resilient ecosystems and cultural heritage. Through his writing and conservation work, he offers a unique perspective that bridges ecological science with a profound respect for the natural world.

    Arab/American: Landscape, Culture, and Cuisine in Two Great Deserts
    What a Bee Knows
    Where Our Food Comes From
    Cultures of Habitat
    Gathering the desert
    Mesquite
    • 2024

      Chile, Clove, and Cardamom

      A Gastronomic Journey Into the Fragrances and Flavors of Desert Cuisines

      • 208 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      Delve into a collection of delectable recipes that showcase the rich culinary traditions of some of the world's hottest and driest regions. Featuring aromatic dishes and unique cooking techniques from Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the US-Mexico deserts, this book highlights the adaptability of flavors in arid environments. Compiled by two acclaimed James Beard Award-winning authors, it offers a vibrant exploration of diverse cuisines that celebrate the resilience and creativity of these cultures.

      Chile, Clove, and Cardamom
    • 2023

      What a Bee Knows

      • 296 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      This fascinating approach to bees shows readers an entirely new perspective - seeing the world through a bee's eyes.

      What a Bee Knows
    • 2023

      An acclaimed ethnobotanist and a pioneering restaurateur beautifully capture the unparalleled diversity and distinctiveness of artisanal mezcals

      Agave Spirits
    • 2021

      Climate disasters, tariff wars, extractive technologies, and deepening debts are plummeting American food producers into what is quickly becoming the most severe farm crisis of the last half-century. Yet we are largely unaware of the plight of those whose hands and hearts toil to sustain us.Agrarian and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan--the father of the local food movement--offers a fresh, imaginative look at the parables of Jesus to bring us into a heart of compassion for those in the food economy hit by this unprecedented crisis. Offering palpable scenes from the Sea of Galilee and the fields, orchards, and feasting tables that surrounded it, Nabhan contrasts the profound ways Jesus interacted with those who were the workers of the field and the fishers of the sea with the events currently occurring in American farm country and fishing harbors.Tapping the work of Middle Eastern naturalists, environmental historians, archaeologists, and agro-ecologists, Jesus for Farmers and Fishers is sure to catalyze deeper conversations, moral appraisals, and faith-based social actions in each of our faith-land-water communities.

      Jesus for Farmers and Fishers
    • 2020

      "The desert inspires wonder. Attending to history, culture, science, and spirit, Everything That Stings, Clings, or Sings celebrates the bounty and the significance of desert places"-- Provided by publisher

      The Nature of Desert Nature
    • 2020

      Cumin, Camels, and Caravans

      • 328 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family’s history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routes—the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)—Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict—Arabs and Jews—have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future.

      Cumin, Camels, and Caravans
    • 2018

      Mesquite

      • 212 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      In his latest book, Mesquite, Gary Paul Nabhan employs humor and contemplative reflection to convince readers that they have never really glimpsed the essence of what he calls arboreality.

      Mesquite
    • 2018

      Food from the Radical Center

      • 184 pages
      • 7 hours of reading
      3.8(75)Add rating

      The father of the local food movement shares how collaboration across the political divide can fix our broken food system.

      Food from the Radical Center
    • 2013

      Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      "How to harvest water and nutrients, select drought-tolerant plants, and create natural diversity Because climatic uncertainty has now become "the new normal," many farmers, gardeners and orchard-keepers in North America are desperately seeking ways to adapt their food production to become more resilient in the face of such "global weirding." This book draws upon the wisdom and technical knowledge from desert farming traditions all around the world to offer time-tried strategies for: Building greater moisture-holding capacity and nutrients in soils Protecting fields from damaging winds, drought, and floods Harvesting water from uplands to use in rain gardens and terraces filled with perennial crops Delecting fruits, nuts, succulents, and herbaceous perennials that are best suited to warmer, drier climates Gary Paul Nabhan is one of the world's experts on the agricultural traditions of arid lands. For this book he has visited indigenous and traditional farmers in the Gobi Desert, the Arabian Peninsula, the Sahara Desert, and Andalusia, as well as the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Painted deserts of North America, to learn firsthand their techniques and designs aimed at reducing heat and drought stress on orchards, fields, and dooryard gardens. This practical book also includes colorful "parables from the field" that exemplify how desert farmers think about increasing the carrying capacity and resilience of the lands and waters they steward. It is replete with detailed descriptions and diagrams of how to implement these desert-adapted practices in your own backyard, orchard, or farm. This unique book is useful not only for farmers and permaculturists in the arid reaches of the Southwest or other desert regions. Its techniques and prophetic vision for achieving food security in the face of climate change may well need to be implemented across most of North America over the next half-century, and are already applicable in most of the semiarid West, Great Plains, and the U.S. Southwest and adjacent regions of Mexico"--Provided by the publisher

      Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land
    • 2013

      Food, Genes, and Culture

      • 233 pages
      • 9 hours of reading
      3.7(109)Add rating

      Vegan, low fat, low carb, slow carb: Every diet seems to promise a one-size- fits-all solution to health. But they ignore the diversity of human genes and how they interact with what we eat. In this title, a renowned ethnobotanist shows why the perfect diet for one person could be disastrous for another.

      Food, Genes, and Culture