Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies & Fuzz
Non fiction about wildlife getting in trouble, and earthy whole grain cookies
Hello!
If you need some new facts to store in your brain and blurt out when you feel awkward at a holiday party, the book featured in this issue will help you out. Both in the course of the story and through very long and funny footnotes, Fuzz shares hyper detailed information about bears, cougars, elephants, wild monkeys and people-killing trees. And this issue goes off brand a bit in that I decided to bake cookies instead of a bread, for no more complex reason than that I really felt like eating cookies. Enjoy!
Do you like reading Good Book/Good Bread? Send this sign up page to a friend you think would enjoy it too!
Good Book
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach (2021)
In a nutshell
Fuzz is a funny and educational book about wild animals that find themselves on the wrong side of human-made rules. The book uncovers unbelievable stories of how humans try to enforce boundaries, both behavioural and territorial, on mammals that just don’t care. Roach travels all over the world to follow animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. From black bears breaking into homes and raiding fridges in Aspen to gangs of biting wild monkeys in India, Roach’s exploration of animals being animals is educational, hilarious, and makes you think about the disconnect between human development and animal instinct.
Structure
Fuzz is told in a mixture of third person and first person, the latter when Roach is part of the story, like attending a Wildlife Human Attack Response Training course in British Columbia or visiting leopard attack hot spots in the Middle Himalaya.
Intriguing facts I learned about in Fuzz
1. The Vatican hunter gull
In 2014, Pope Francis was leading a January tradition where he reads a message of peace on a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, surrounded by children from a youth group. At the end, a peace dove is released. Unfortunately, a hunter gull was lying in wait, and as soon as the dove was released, the gull swopped down and nailed it. Going forward, they released a dove shaped helium balloon.
2. Details about animals going to court
In the prologue, Roach includes some early research she stumbled across in a 1906 book titled The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, a hilarious list of historical court cases with animal defendants. A few highlights:
In 1659, five towns in northern Italy initiated legal action against caterpillars who were trespassing and eating from people’s gardens and orchards. The caterpillars were ordered to appear in court on the 28th of June to be assigned legal representation. Spoiler: they didn’t show.
Bears have been formally excommunicated from the Catholic Church
In 1403, a French bailiff submitted an expense report which included “six sols parisis” for the cost of keeping a female pig in jail during her murder trial
In 1545, a group of weevils had a legal complaint brought against them, and records show both the names of the lawyers involved as well as an early example of stalling as a legal tactic
3. Black bears don’t stay put
When problem black bears are captured, radio-collared and then translocated, they don’t like to stick around. There have been cases where re-released black bears have travelled enormous distances to return to where they were captured. This includes one travelling black bear that journeyed 142 miles, including a six mile ocean swim, to make it back home.
If you like Fuzz, read this:
The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Quote I liked
“Kurtis Tesch has bear stories, but maybe not the kind you expect. The things that stay with him are not the displays of strength or violence but rather the intelligence and occasional unexpected lightness of touch. The bear that unwrapped the foil on a Hershey’s Kiss. A bear that stood up, grasped a door on either side and pulled it from its frame, then carefully leaned it up against the house.”
Whole wheat chocolate chip cookies
Why this treat for this book?
I have been milling my own flour recently, and wanted to see what a chocolate chip cookie made with 100% whole grain would taste like. It turns out it tastes really good, but also grainy and earthy, a perfect fit for a book about wildlife and the great outdoors.
Recipe
I used this recipe here. The only thing I might change next time is sieving out a small amount of the largest pieces of bran, as the cookies were a little grainier than I would have liked.
Looking forward
Book I’m looking forward to reading: Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
New music I’m looking forward to listening to: Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
What I’m looking forward to baking: a blue cheese and pine nut tart from Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person
If you liked this issue, feel free to hit the heart button (it helps other people find my newsletter!) Thanks for reading!
How did I miss this?! I am so excited to read this Mary Roach book - I love her books and I am really really interested in this subject for all kinds of reasons. Thank you!
I loved Fuzz and especially Roach’s humor...sadly this world revolves around humans and ultimately, that was the take away... there’s so little we can do to make “humane” choices that serve us humans.