Head to Mulberry Bush Bookstore in Parksville on May 28 and you will have the opportunity to meet the authors of The Flour Peddler: A Global Journey into Local Food from Canada to South Sudan.
Written by B.C.-based brothers Chris and Josh Hergesheimer and published by Caitlin Press in Halfmoon Bay, the book takes a look at local food on a global scale.
The story starts in 2008 when small-scale flour miller Chris created a mill out of a bicycle. Chris, who is also a research, policy and project management consultant on issues surrounding food and farming, wanted to challenge the belief that there is only one way — the big way — to grow, process and market grain and flour.
He couldn’t have predicted, however, that this unique contraption would take himself and his brother Josh, a writer and photographer, on the journey of their lives. Committed to their cause, the Hergesheimer brothers set out from B.C.’s Sunshine Coast to build and deliver their bicycle-powered grain mill to a rural women’s cooperative in the village of Panlang in the northwestern corner of South Sudan.
Part grain-chain analysis, part bare-all exposé, The Flour Peddler is a unique and gripping story that explores the trends and issues of local food systems as well as the challenges and power of alternative food movements. For the Hergesheimer brothers, it is also a journey of surprising adventure, from broken-down market vans, fraudulent bus tickets and hungry bears to a Russian helicopter, an attempted coup and a heart-wrenching homecoming.
“Food writing meets true adventure in this book that sees the globe with local eyes,” said J.B. MacKinnon, author of The 100-Mile Diet. “From Canada’s West Coast to the heart of South Sudan, the Flour Peddler reveals that local eating isn’t just about food–it’s about the way we relate to the people and places in our lives.”
The Hergesheimers will present their book in Mulberry Bush Bookstore at 7 p.m.
