Description:
James Beard Award Finalist 2025, "Food Issues and Advocacy" Category
Winner, Gold Award, IBPA Book Awards
Ecologist Mark Easter offers a detailed picture of the impact the foods you love have on the earth. Organized by the ingredients of a typical dinner party, including seafood, salad, bread, chicken, steak, potatoes, and fruit pie with ice cream, each chapter examines the food through the lens of the climate crisis. Not a cookbook, but instead, gathered like guests around the table, you will find the stories of these foods: the soil that grew the lettuce, the farmers and ranchers and orchardists who steward the land, the dairy and farm workers and grocers who labor to bring it to the table. Each chapter reveals the causes and effects of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the social and environmental impact of out-of-season and far-from-home demand.
What can you do to eat more sustainably? Food lovers everywhere will be happy to know that the answer is not necessarily a plant-based diet. For each food group, Easter offers not recipes but low-carbon, in-season alternatives that make your favorite foods not only more sustainable but also more delicious.
The first step, however, is an understanding of how food is grown, produced, harvested, and shipped. In stories both personal and entertaining, the author offers a full understanding of what's for dinner.
Brief description: Anthony Myint is an American restaurateur, chef, activist, author, and food consultant based in the Mission in San Francisco. He is a founder of Mission Chinese Food, "The Perennial," Mission Street Food, Mission Cantina, "Mission Burger," "Lt. Waffle," and "Commonwealth Restaurant." He is a pioneer in the environmental and charitable restaurant movement.
Review Quotes:
"The Blue Plate is an excellent primer on where food comes from--with a reminder that if people are what they eat, they need to be conscientious about that consumption." -- Foreword Reviews
"Author and ecologist Easter takes readers on a worldwide tour of food production--a tour that shows exactly where ecology meets the dinner plate. . . . collectively leaving readers with a sense of hope and purpose." -- Booklist
"Like everything Patagonia does, [this book] is elegant, gorgeous, and relevant." -- Lee Woodruff's Book Marks column
"While Easter is crystal clear about the massive threats facing our planet, this is a book built on the ideals of optimism, ingenuity, and taking action." -- Ed Roberson, Mountain and Prairie podcast
"The Blue Plateis more than a book--it's a call to conscience wrapped in the joy of good food. It's science for the soul, written in the tone of a wise friend who knows that change doesn't come from shame but from curiosity, compassion, and conversation. . . .It's a beautifully told, deeply researched, and emotionally resonant invitation to sit down, slow down, and look--really look--at what's for dinner. . . .Through storytelling, soil science, and lived experience, Mark offers us a graceful reminder: we are all participants in the ecosystem, not spectators." --Great Books, Great Minds
"A roadmap for eating well while making choices that matter." --The Ethicalist
"By connecting emissions data to tangible meals, Easter bridges the gap between global crisis and daily decisions, making climate-conscious eating both relevant and actionable." -- Politics and Rights Review