Omnivores

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

In section three of Michael Pollan’s, Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan discusses having a final meal created from everything he has hunted and gathered. Although he is an experience gardener, he has no experience with the fungi or animal kingdom. In order for Pollan to achieve his goal of creating a meal from everything he has gathered, he would have to learn to distinguish the difference between an edible mushroom and poisonous fungi. He also would have to train and take classes to get a hunters license. In order to become more skilled at hunting and gathering, Pollan headed to Santa Cruz, California to learn from a fifty-eight-year old Sicilian named Angelo Garro. Throughout the story, Angelo helps and mentors Pollan until Pollan has the ability to hunt and gather on his own. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is an interesting book, however, the question remains to be asked? Does Michael Pollan’s story have the characteristics of a great book?

According to the class’s opinion, a great book is descriptive and unbiased. It see’s both point of views and uses interesting facts and statistics to gain the readers attention. A great book also stays on topic and is easy to follow. It does not transition from one event to another constantly. Great books give enough descriptions and details to get the reader to use his imagination and understand the situation. As a reader, I expected The Omnivore’s Dilemma to meet these characteristics of a great book. I expected Michael Pollan’s book to entertain me and get my imagination going.

After reading only one section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I would have to say that Pollan has already exceeded these expectations. His story about creating a meal from everything he has grown, gathered and hunted was very detailed and interesting. It creates excitement and gets the reader involved. For example, when Pollan found mushrooms while hiking Berkeley Hills, he went into great detail to explain his experience on weather...