The Obituary of Steven Hopp

Anna Kormis

Steven Hopp tends many things including good words, a large garden, and a
healthy family, said Project Muse. Over the weekend, Dr. Steven Hopp died.
Steven Hopp was born in Michigan, but grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He
received his PhD in life sciences, specifically in animal behavior from Indiana
University. He has published papers in bioacoustics, ornithology, animal behavior,
and sustainable agriculture.
Steven Hopp taught environmental studies at Emory & Henry College in
southwestern Virginia. When asked why he chose Emory & Henry College, Hopp
said, I already was into bird watching, my degree was in animal behavior, and my
love of nature was already present.
Between 2005 and 2006, Hopp and his family only consumed local food for a
year to experience living off the land and the surrounding area instead of buying
food that was heavily processed and shipped miles to get to them. After their year
of only buying local food, Hopp and his family wrote about their experience and
published it as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life has a mixture of stories from
the familys learning process behind growing their own food and finding what they
wanted locally. This caused the family to have to give up some of their favorite
foods. On the bright side, they were allowed to choose one item to get as long as
they could find it Free Trade. Steven Hopp chose coffee.
He co-owned the Harvest Table, a restaurant located in Meadowview, Virginia
that uses only locally purchased food. The idea of the Harvest Table came about

after 2006 when Hopp and his family had ended their year of living only off of local
food.
The Harvest Table runs into the same issue Hopps family had during their
year of local eating: some things are not available all the time. To counter this, The
New York Times said, Its chefs buy from dozens of local farms, pay foragers for
ramps and morels that proliferate in the Appalachian woods, and get all the wine
from Virginia.
We do not have lemons in our drinks. Lemons are not local and do you
really need to have a lemon in your water? No, they can be replaced, said Hopp,
The Harvest Table uses lemon mint or lemon basil instead.
Dr. Steven Hopp had wanted to build a year-round farmers market.
Citations
Hopp, Steven. shop@ehc.edu.
Black, Jane. Local Food Has Been No Easy Sell in Appalachia. The New York Times.
July 26, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/dining/local-food-has-been-noeasy-sell-in-appalachia.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&
Steven L. Hopp. Harper Collins Publishers. 2014.
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/30130/Steven_L_Hopp/index.aspx
Kingsolver, Barbara; Hopp, Steven L; Kingsolver, Camille. Animal, Vegetable,
Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Harper Collins Publishers. 2007.
Minick, Jim. Trending Community: An Interview with Steven Hopp. Project Muse.
2008. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/aph/summary/v036/36.4.minick.html