FREE FOOD: earth eating – Andrew Barton (New edition! 3rd printing)
FREE FOOD: earth eating – Andrew Barton (New edition! 3rd printing)
A counterculture cookbook for these strange times.
Mixing memoir and loose recipes, this book intends to inspire a “free” approach to cooking and eating. A literally down-to-earth approach – as in: food grown, purchased, cooked, and consumed with an awareness of the Earth. A reflection on an idealistic, optimistic, possibility-fueled young adulthood spent around tables of co-op houses and would-be communes. An appreciation for groovy, light-hearted, no-rules cuisine.
Hippies of the past dreamt of a better world from their kitchens, and today we can do the same as we cook and eat in more informed, conscious, intentional ways.
This book is a love letter to Eugene, Oregon – a small city where this free spirited food and mindset have long been commonplace – and takes a close look at the formative food memories that make us hunger for another taste.
Free Food is a not-done-dreaming exploration of alternative ways of living in the now.
Foreword by Jonathan Kauffman
Contributing essays by Nicole Lavelle and Lola Milholland
Original drawings by Sam Farrell
Title page lettering by Adam Zeek
Note: As of December 11th, 2025 – approximately the one year anniversary of the book’s release, the offset spot color green first edition has sold out. A second printing, in black & white on the same cream paper stock, wearing a spot color green dust jacket was available for the holiday season but swiftly sold out. A new edition 3rd printing is now available as of May 19th, 2026, also in b&w with green covers. The original 100lb eggshell cover stock was painstakingly sourced, along with the same interior paper as the original. It contains 12 all new pages: an extended excerpt of ‘Recipes from the Saturday Market,’ a circa-1982 community cookbook from Eugene, Oregon! The book was sent to Andrew in late 2025, and was really the most beautiful missing puzzle piece to showcase where he came from and to offer some tried and true classic recipes!
324 pages. Printed and bound in Portland, Oregon by Becky Wolfswinkel based on the original edition printed by Charles Overbeck of Eberhardt Press.
New editions of The Long Loaf and Free Food, circa May 2026
From Andrew:
This is my version of a “Grandmother cooking back story.” But instead of a story about deeply rooted regional specificity or techniques handed down through generations, it’s about how the weird small city where I’m from and the people I was surrounded by in youth influenced the food that comes so naturally to my hands as they cook. This Free Food brings extra delight along with extra nourishment. My hope is that the book is very relatable to some, oddly compelling to others, enjoyable to read and use by anyone. Earth Eating!
