Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

James Rebanks was taught by his grandfather to work the farmland in the old ways, a patchwork of crops and meadows of pastures grazed with livestock and teeming with wildlife.

When James inherits his grandfather's farm, that landscape had profoundly changed.

Men, women, horses had vanished from the fields.

No more songbirds.

Our book is English Pastoral.

Let's meet my guest April Lidinsky to find out what happened.

Lidinsky, April.

It is so good to have you here.

Everything went smooth and then bloop.

But in any case, we are ready to talk about the food we're cooking.

All right.

And a farmhouse meal here and everything fresh.

And let's talk about what we're making.

Tell us what you're doing.

I had to make a shepherd's pie.

And this is a shepherd's pie made with some unusual vegetables.

So this is using celeriac, which is new to me.

And is the cover vegetable on the new Edible Michiana.

So if you like celery, this is in the celery family, but it's the--the bulbous stem.

And.

I always wondered about that funny looking--yes, it has a curly top on it.

So you have-- so in the pan, I'm making, yes, the base of the shepherd's pie.

So this is the holy trinity of carrots, celery and onions and a little bit of garlic and that's going to be the base.

You can make this pie according to the recipe with meat, if you like.

I'm going to do a vegetarian version.

And so I'm going to add in just a moment some French lentils and mushrooms that will be sort of the base of the pie.

And and you have potatoes here.

You're going to be mashing.

So in here is the potatoes mixed with the celeriac, cubed celeriac.

Isn't that great?

A new experience.

I've always wondered about that funny looking vegetable.

I am going to do a sort of farm, a farm salad.

I have actually baked some beets and I'm going to slice them and baked beets are so sweet and nice.

I wrap them in foil, bake them for an hour and a half and I will slice one, ta-dum, in this show.

And I've also have whiskey laden carrots with thyme and some honey.

So this will be our salad and then for dessert we will have an English trifle.

So let's--let's actually establish right away about the grandfather's version of farming and his father's version of farming.

So the book really is about three generations.

And one of the points of the book that I really appreciate is how quickly things have gone wrong.

So it's really just the last 40 years and, you know, hopefully how quickly we can change things back.

So James describes himself as not a very happy kid, sort of sullen, lonely, and doesn't have a great relationship with his father.

But his grandfather sees something in him.

His father is is a very crabby man in a way.

He wants his family to just, you know, now!

I want it done now.

And he'd walk into the farmhouse dripping with mud.

And he was very demanding.

And that doesn't really bring you to adore farm life, does it?

No, but it also is sort of the moment that he was born.

So his father catches up with farming right as it's becoming industrialized.

And it's--it's bad for people as well as for the plants.

So, his father, I think exemplifies that.

And I sort of mentioned a little bit about his grandfather's farming.

You know, you have farms with trees and winding creeks and or little rivulets and everything had a purpose.

And the songbirds were there and the insects were there and they were working for us.

But they also brought joy to life.

And so James, as he's writing his books and studying, he sees that everything has kind of gone awry.

And, you know who he blames it on?

Remember the name Earl Butz?

He was the director of the head of agriculture and he was from Indiana.

And he said, you've got a farm big or get out.

And that was his philosophy.

And in the United States, the same thing happened.

And, of course, we took industrial farming to the next level.

Absolutely.

And changed the whole actually the whole picture of farming.

Yeah.

The phrase better living through chemistry sort of comes from all of those munitions factories for World War Two that then get converted into pesticides and fertilizers.

And that company was Farber.

You know, the explosives were Dana Farber and this is oh, my goodness, what is that name?

You've got it, haven't you?

We'll get to it.

We'll find it here.

But it's it is the same Farber, like you said, and so this book is divided into three sections.

You have one called Nostalgia.

You have another one called Progress.

And the third one is Utopia.

And it is--it is very, very well done and very focused.

What do you think?

What do you think?

Well, did you feel that James was starting to talk about this in his prior book?

Did he mention it or he talked more about his life?

No, I think he did.

That--that previous book, which I do recommend for people who are interested in reading this one, there's so many similarities, but some really interesting differences.

So he lays the groundwork of sort of how he became a shepherd, who's also interested in teaching the broader world about what's valuable about ancient ways and how to adapt for the future.

This book, I think, takes a bigger picture.

It really looks at industrial farming and patterns that all of us who eat food need to be thinking about it.

So it's kind of a call to action.

It's lots of fast, good food, but not the most tasty food.

But it's--it has been produced to be cheap in the supermarkets.

And sometimes that low price and I understand it is very important to have good food at a low price for so many people who are, you know, barely surviving.

And part of his idea is we've got to go back to some of the old ways to preserve our land because everything has changed so radically.

I just want to say I'm adding these wonderfully baked beans.

Oh, those are gorgeous.

And then or I could have put two more beets in here.

I'd say if you say, oh, I never eat beets, try baking them, wrap them in foil, make them at four hundred for two hours or an hour and a half, start with an hour and a half and you can poke through the foil and--and I really think it's just delicious.

Yeah.

So I've always liked beets, but I hear people say, oh, I couldn't do that.

I have made a dressing for this salad.

That's, it's white wine vinegar, it's sea salt, it is French mustard, some olive oil.

And I've actually roasted some walnuts.

And so I'm going to put those on and here are my I call them drunken carrots because they have been cooked in wine and, no, a little bit of wine, but also some whiskey.

And we have thyme and they--they took longer than I expected to bake in the oven.

They're pretty.

But they taste very nice.

They really do.

So we're going to sprinkle carrots in here.

And then I have the walnuts already there.

And it is an interesting way to do a salad, I think.

Now here comes the aromatic thing.

We have some Stilton and this Stilton.

He's very I don't want to say fragrance, it's more than fragrant,.

Pungent?

It's pungent.

Oh, my goodness.

So I am going to break up some Stilton in the salad.

Now, if you want to put feta, if you don't like Stilton, a lot of people do and a lot of people don't.

You could put feta cheese in there and and then I will put on my dressing and we will have a kind of a English farmhouse.

Sounds so pretty and I think it's wonderful.

I love trying new things, new ways here.

So when we talk about the nostalgia, we kind of covered that in a way.

But it is a way of farming was beautiful, hard working.

It was lovely.

But they worked.

They still worked very hard.

But in that time, women weren't actually expected to go out and do so much work.

They were keeping a nice house and making canning and preserving.

It was plenty of work to do.

And there was--that was a lot of work.

So we are coming to the end of this segment and we will put some--we will put a few things in the oven.

I'm going to tell you what's in here.

We've got to deglaze to these sauteed vegetables with some wine and some vegetable broth, although you can use meat broth as well.

I'm going to put the lentils and the mushrooms that I've cooked in wine in here.

This'll be--.

That smells wonderful!

The base and this will cook down just a little bit.

And the shepherd's pie is going to be made right in this skillet.

And so, well, after these cooked down will add the mashed potatoes and celeriac to the top.

OK, and we're going to take a pause now.

You're going to mash the potatoes, put this all together and then we will be right back.

April Lidinsky and I are back, our book is English Pastoral by James Rebanks, and we are making a farmhouse meal, but it doesn't have to be just on the farm.

People serve it in London as well.

I have one more thing to make my English trifle.

I will be putting together custard and whipped cream and a little bit of cake, raspberries, blueberries and a lot of whipped cream and sherry.

Talking about sherry.

It's five o'clock somewhere in the British Isles, isn't it?

Yes, yes.

This is what you have at five o'clock in England in the--in Great Britain.

Oh, so you're ready to put that in the oven almost?

Yes.

The topping of this instead of just being regular mashed potatoes.

Is that celeriac cubed up, cooked down with the potatoes and then whipped with some butter and milk and some English cheddar cheese, a little bit of salt and pepper.

But you could make it vegan very, very easily with vegan alternatives to the milk and butter.

Lactose free.

You know, you can do a lot of things.

And it's not just because it's a style.

Some people can't particularly well any age can't adjust to dairy.

And that's why a lot of people in Europe don't drink milk, particularly adults, but they do like whipped cream and so do I. I love itA lot.

More cheese for me.

Well, and that's the thing.

It doesn't--it does make it difficult.

I have a custard I have made here.

We're going to put in here on top and then I'm going to add--I'm going to add some berries, blueberries, and of course, they're not in season.

And of course, this just might be shown when they're in season.

So we'll just not talk about that.

But in any case, it is a simple dessert.

You can also serve it in wine glasses as a dessert.

Each person gets one and you make all these little mini--mini trifles and they say it's just a trifle.

Well, it takes some work and I'm just going to slosh Sherry in every now and then and now my whipping cream.

And we will just keep layering this.

And then normally you put it in the refrigerator to kind of let it set a little bit, but that's the beginning of a trifle.

So add now some more of the cake and look at that.

Doesn't that look lovely?

Little fancy top.

So this way this bakes in the oven for four hundred oven for twenty minutes and I'm actually going to ask for some help to put it in the oven and then you broil it at the end.

So if you make a little pattern with some ridges, isn't that nic?.

It'll be fancy at the end.

So--.

Alright.

Let's put it in.

Here we go.

Shepherd's pie, ready to bake.

All right.

Now you say how much?

Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes.

And so.

All right, I'm going to add more of my cake here.

And you can use, really, you can use Charlotte fingers.

You can use sponge cake.

I'm--I'm just using a little angel food cake and we'll just keep layering.

A little more pudding here.

A little--.

And I saved all of my sort of, in the spirit of Rebanks, saved all of the peels from the vegetables that I use.

So I'll put this in my compost.

And this is part of his theme of just bio--reintroducing biodiversity in every part of our lives.

And this is something even if you're not a farmer, you eat food you can do.

You probably have a very nice garden, too, with your--all of your mulching that goes on.

But that kind of natural amending of the soil, re-enriching of the soil.

Again, a theme in the book, right?

You don't need these artificial fertilizers that make everything big but empty, lots of empty calories.

Empty calories, killing the insects.

I'm you know, and they say, but what do you use?

You don't want all of your food nibbled.

I don't know what they use for insecticide.

They just let them-- Make more food.

And they're, you know, even a gardener in a neighborhood can use marigolds and do a companion planting with herbs to keep critters and bugs away.

But--but part of Rebanks' point, of course, is that bugs are important and bugs feed the birds.

And if there aren't any bugs, then you don't have birds and--.

You don't have any flowers.

There are no bumblebees, no bees.

Absolutely.

And so all those things are connected.

But today, the chickens don't even walk or don't even move.

They are boxed up, and this is what Rebanks is so exasperated with, this style of farm raising, and can you imagine a chicken that can't even walk because it's been developed to get the most, you know, food from each chicken.

And at the same time, all the hormones--.

They're built like Barbies.

It's all hormones.

And--and I don't think it's good for us.

In fact, people that have a propensity for cancer, that cancer loves the hormones and the antibiotics in some of our food.

So I am--I'm a little leery of all that.

Now, let's see one more layer.

We'll do one more layer here.

That looks beautiful.

What he wants people to do is just kind of remember the old ways.

And they're not very complicated, but they're richly diverse.

And so in that final section Utopia, he talks about what they're doing on their farm.

And it's as simple as digging ponds.

As soon as you dig a pond, you get frogs.

And when you've got frogs, birds return.

Yes.

And they have herons coming back and it's sort of rewilding.

You're planting trees to also harbor birds and insects, and at the same time, we have-- we have these industrial farms and James Rebanks is not very fond of them at all.

There's some shade in the book for Midwestern.

Several times he says about Midwestern farms that are ruining our food.

And you say, well, but people need more food and it needs to be cheaper.

And that's a real dilemma because we have so many poor people.

What do we do?

We can't just feed them oatmeal.

And it is--it's going to be for people like him to work this out, to figure it out, to make our--our--our food delicious at the same time within our budgets and our billfolds.

And so there's a lot of discussion about this sort of plan.

And now his--his grandfather was more of the traditional.

His father was starting the new ways.

And--and I don't think in the last book, James really talked too much about what his father was doing that he didn't like because he hadn't learned all this yet.

.

I think that's accurate.

So and it was also, you know, I think a lot of a lot of hurt feelings in this book.

He has a more compassionate approach, I think, for his father as somebody kind of caught in a generational moment.

Right?

Big AG was taking off.

So, I mean, the good news in the book is how quickly things can revert back.

So just in the-- Just planting some trees and then but they're doing one other thing that's rather expensive.

They are just rewiggling some of the streams.

I love that term.

We in America, we usually say are re meandering streams, which is also wonderful.

You need them for fish.

Absolutely.

So more complicated river banks mean that there's eddies and tidal pools and so all these things are connected.

That's one of the themes, I think, the kind of arrogance of people in the 80s and 90s who thought chemistry would solve everything.

There could be cheap food.

And in fact, once you mess with part of the system, there are all of these--all of these problems, which, of course, Rachel Carson warned us of in 1962.

She did.

And she made a big impression.

And a lot of people said, oh, she's just anti farming.

She's--she doesn't want the farmers to succeed.

But she was, she was talking about our health and what these pesticides we're doing.

And how is she regarded today.

Well, I think as you know, the mother of the modern ecological movement, so certainly a woman ahead of her time, she was--she was recognized by President John F. Kennedy at the time.

But the impact I mean, if people haven't read Silent Spring, I hope they will.

I know Rebanks is a huge fan, but she makes the same argument as he does in this book, that biodiversity is essential, it's essential for humans so that we have complicated, rich and interesting lives, but also, you know, for--for our agriculture and for the decisions that we make as consumers.

What are we going to value and what is the cost of-- And how good is the product?

But in any case, I--I recommend you start with the shepherd's life when he's younger and now he's working up.

He's had his degree.

He's on a United Nations council giving advice to countries that are struggling with these dilemmas.

And now he's--you know, he's back and he has people working for him.

He's just not a single farmer there.

He's got a lot of people.

He has to rewind the rivers.

And--but I'm getting to the end of this.

And you've got a little--you've got a little green-- you're rewilding here, aren't you?

This is from my yard.

Some things that made it over the winter.

So I've got some kale and Swiss chard and some thyme, which is also in the base of the shepherd's pie.

So it is a rather plain looking dish.

And so I'm making it fancier with greens from the yard and my mother in law's beautiful China.

So bringing together, you know, locals.

And you could--you could have some sliced tomatoes in there and sliced eggs--in season.

Yes, but this show--is sometimes is shown in season.

So but in any case, I've got to just pick up some of these things on the trifle dish and we are ready, aren't we?

How much time do we have left on our wonderful dinner?

About five more minutes?

We could probably use the broiler.

I would do that.

I will do it.

Yes, and we will set our table and we invite you to come with us to the farm for a farmhouse dinner.

We'll be right back.

And here's our dinner, could be served in Cumbria, northern England, right at James Rebanks farm.

Yes, I can mention what you have done here.

So this is a shepherd's pie, a vegetarian version, though it could be made with meat as well, topping with the new celeriac, new to me, mashed with potatoes and some cheese and broiled so that it's got these nice peaks and valleys.

It's beautiful.

It's absolutely beautiful.

And I do have--I believe you also sent me some leeks for the salad and it's roasted beets and roasted carrots and Stilton cheese with some toasted walnuts and a very nice homemade dressing.

And of course, the trifle, which is lots of fun.

Children would love to make that happen, wouldn't they?

Just all these layers.

Yes, it's just marvelous.

And we have our sherry and let's have a little sherry toast.

If they don't do that in England, they're doing it now.

And all right now you're going to do that and you're going to put it on your decorated--your rewild plate here.

Oh, isn't that lovely?

My mother in law's China.

As long as you're working.

Let's do it.

I just think it's beautiful and wonderful.

Wonderful.

A little bit of extra parsley for--.

Yes, it's browned beautifully.

And you've got the furrows there just like out on the farm.

And I do want to say that I enjoyed this book and I can't wait to see what he's going to write next.

You mentioned his children.

He's got four children and they seem as in love with the work of the farm and the joy of rewilding their place.

He brings schoolchildren there, he and his wife, Helen.

And it's just really a hub for people to learn.

And people will learn from the book about the value of the world, more about him now and about the farming techniques and what is lacking in our current farming situation and in England and all over the world.

Again, April, it's been a joy having you again here.

It's been so fun.

And I love your furrowed shepherd's pie.

It's wonderful work.

Can't wait to see what James does next.

Yeah, I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Thank you for coming today.

It was a pleasure.

So fun.

And remember, good food, good friends, good books, good nature.

All of that makes for a very good life.

Absolutely.

See you next time.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.