Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen argues passionately for the need to change everything concerning food—how we grow, buy, cook, eat, and especially, think about it. Even what we call it, hence the plain-talkin’ new G-word. This new manifesto cum cookbook and would-be movement hopes to end the tyranny of dietary dogmatism in favor of a more inclusive and nonjudgmental notion of healthy eating. It asserts that “our diets should be spontaneous, flexible, and creative,” and dares to imagine that vegans, vegetarians, meat-eaters, slow foodists, et al can sit down and share a meal—or at the very least, a philosophy. After dinner, they can all get up, go out, and lobby for more sustainable, locally sourced, fair-trade, pesticide-free foods in our communities. Most importantly, Grub’s authors acknowledge that even they don’t “get it right 100 percent of the time,” but that forming new “habits of mind and habits of shopping” help.

If you’re just looking for organic recipes for modern multicultural palates, flip straight to the back, but do come back later for the rest. Grub opens by building a heavily-footnoted case against large-scale modern farming, then offers seven practical steps for making changes in our lives (and our kitchens and soup pots), before coming to an upbeat finish with an array of seasonal menus in which flavor and fun are essential ingredients. Appropriate musical selections are even presented, along with wine, emphasizing the joy of a Grub lifestyle.

For Mother’s Day, Grub is especially apropos. Its menu creator/curator, Bryant Terry, who founded the nonprofit group b-healthy to show low-income kids how to eat healthier food, pulls together 15 seasonal menus with several recipes fondly recalling the home cooked grub of his mother, grandmother, and the moms of a few guest cooks. Grub co-author Anna Lappé ratchets up the mom-factor even higher—Frances Moore Lappé, Anna’s mother, wrote the seminal Diet for a Small Planet, which exposed the root causes of persistent hunger and the repercussions of our everyday meals. (Mother and daughter later collaborated on Hope's Edge.) In Grub, Lappé dishes the dirt on the extent of pesticides in our water, soil, and food; their ill effects ranging from cancer to birth defects; and the history of how they came into common consumer use (you can largely thank WWII’s defense industry). She also shatters the “Six Illusions,” such as the Illusion of Safe and Clean and the Illusion of Choice, that keep up with our bad food habits.

After her opening bit, Lappé delivers empowering if not always glamorous advice, such as cleaning out your fridge, buying a good peeler and set of knives, saving money by buying in bulk, and performing a “community audit” of the farmers’ markets, food co-ops, CSA (community supported agriculture) farms, and similar resources available near you. Yes, some of it sounds like work, but the point is that you’re making an investment. You’ll actually save time, money, the planet, and your own health if your kitchen’s well stocked and your mind well informed.

In contrast, Terry’s job as menu-master and raconteur lets him deliver such joyful proclamations as, “Diets are dead!” By this, he means any strict rules that suck the pleasure out of eating, whether diets for weight loss or “those rigid labels: Raw Foodist, Fruitarian, Vegan, Lacto-ovo-vegetarian, Ovo-vegetarian, Pescetarian, Omnivore.” Terry is resolutely non-dogmatic; the only essential thing is that Grub cuisine be home-cooked. In fact, readers are encouraged to adapt his menus—substituting tofu for shrimp, skipping the cheese, or—quelle horreur—even replacing soy with ground meat.

Terry offers three menus for spring: “Lara’s Cuban Comfort Meal,” “Simply Macrobiotic,” and “Ludie’s and Elizabeth’s Afro-Latino Tapas.” In keeping with his advice to both honor your ancestors and choose healthier food, “Grandma’s Pastelitos” have tempeh instead of chicken or beef. Likewise, an otherwise traditional Puerto Rican mofongo (fried mashed plaintains) swaps out the traditional pork with sautéed wild shiitake, Baby Bella, and bluefoot mushrooms.

So what are you waiting for? Skip the bouquet this Sunday and impress Mom with some healthy home-cooked Grub. You might just start a movement.

Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen

Cost: $18.95

Where to Buy: Amazon.com

Photo: EatGrub.org