David Mas Masumoto

David Mas Masumoto is an organic peach and grape farmer and the author of six books. A third generation farmer, Masumoto grows peaches, nectarines, grapes and raisins on an organic 80 acre farm south of Fresno, California. Masumoto is currently a columnist for and The Fresno Bee. He was a Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow from 2006-2008. His writing awards include Commonwealth Club Silver medal, Julia Child Cookbook award, the James Clavell Literacy Award and a finalist in the James Beard Foundation awards. He received the “Award of Distinction” from UC Davis in 2003 and the California Central Valley "Excellence in Business" Award in 2007. He is currently a board member of the James Irvine Foundation and serves on the Statewide Leadership Council to the Public Policy Institute of California. He has served as chair of the California Council for the Humanities.

Country Voices: The Oral History of a Japanese American Family Farm Community 1987

From Library Journal

The author combines oral interviews of Japanese-American farm families with his own comments to tell about their history, culture, and farming in Del Rey, California. The result is an uneven read, as parts would appeal only to the ardent sociologist, e.g., the chapter on community organizations, while others are more general, e.g., that on evacuation and relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II gives us another important view of that tragedy. The section on farming itself is the strongest. Some of the work covers the familiar territory of generational conflicts, racial prejudice, and the struggle between Americanization and preservation of ethnic roots. Primarily for the sociologist, folk culturist, and agriculturist. (Photos and drawings not seen.) Roger W. Fromm, Bloomsburg Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

This is a peach of a book, as delectable as the Sun Crest peach Masumoto is struggling to save. It is a superior variety as to taste but has a short shelf life. The author, a third-generation farmer, gives an eloquent account of one year on his farm in the California desert. He notes that grape and tree fruit farmers are deprived of an annual rite that other farmers have, planting a new crop. Peach trees are planted every 15 to 20 years; grapevines, once in a lifetime. And, according to the author, a new planting is like having another child, requiring patience and sacrifice and a resounding optimism for the future. Masumoto's book reveals his commitment to the land and his family; it is also a cogent commentary on American agriculture.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Masumoto's Epitaph for a Peach described his love affair with a fragile, imperfect variety of peach. Here, he continues his meditation on the farm that has been in his family for three generations, reflecting on and celebrating his Japanese-American heritage as he prunes vines, digs hardpan, clears itchy grass and picks grapes. He skillfully writes on the practicalities of Thompson grapes becoming raisins and of those same divine Sun Crest peaches that never made it to market. In doing so, he reveals his sadness at never having known his grandfathers and his frustrating quest to hone the skills he needs to continue the farm. From his fertile, if sometimes inconstant, farm, he travels to the arid desert of Arizona's Gila River Relocation Center, where his family, like thousands of other Japanese Americans, were interned during WWII. Almost nothing of the camp remains but a pile of broken, thick white dishes. "I brought them back to show my parents... Dad grabbed the platter between a firm thumb and curled fingers and held it up as if to receive a helping of mash or a spoonful of beans. They exchanged a subtle grin that quickly disappeared when Dad shook his head and set down the fragment." In this evocative and lyrical pleasure, metaphors of sowing, cultivating and reaping conjoin to describe the deepest roots of sustenance and nurturing found in families. Here, Masumoto writes with a keen sense of indebtedness and gratitude to the many individuals who make up the entity he calls his family.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Given the opportunity to write letters to everyone who ever mattered in your life, who would you choose? What would you say? In this day of e-mails and I-Ms, does anyone even write letters anymore? Masumoto does, notably in the form of regular columns for the Fresno Bee, where he has followed the advice of an editor who once told him that writing a good newspaper column was like writing a letter to a friend. And so Masumoto has written letters not only to childhood pals and forgotten neighbors but also to the long-dead grandparents who immigrated from Japan to California's Central Valley to establish the farm that Masumoto now runs, and to the father who taught him how to do just that. They are letters of revelation and regret, of advice and affirmation, of gratitude and grief, all imbued with Masumoto's eloquent appreciation for the land and its stewards. Lusciously complemented by Hansen's elegant watercolor illustrations, this simple volume explores life's complexities, one letter at a time. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Dear Reader, A letter. A hug with words. People matter in letters that is part of the personal nature of correspondence. A letter starts with Dear, a serious word about caring. Today, letters still count. Even with high technology, the Internet, cell phones, text messaging, and computers, one major means of communication has become email. Old-fashioned letter writing. Words still matter. That s how peach farmer and author David Mas Masumoto opens this second book based on his enormously popular column that has appeared in the Fresno Bee since 2002. As he did in his first collection, Letters to the Valley (Heyday, 2005), Masumoto writes in the form of letters because they allow the expression of real emotions that might be shared with friends and family. Divided into five sections, Heirlooms explores the life and rhythms of Masumoto s farm, the rapidly changing landscape of California s Central Valley, and the personalities who populate Masumoto s life. The essays tell of the other California, a place where family homesteads abound yet are faced with the constant threat of development.

"Wisdom of the Last Farmer is a fiercely tender book; it could forever change how you regard a parent and the way you eat a peach...[and] puts food and farming into a rugged perspective that both humbles and inspires." -- DEBORAH MADISON, author of What We Eat When We Eat Alone and Local Flavors

"An eloquent and moving memoir...a coming-of-age story for adults as well as a generous appreciation of the personal value of farming to farmers and its overall value to society. Masumoto's love for his family, their land, and the fruit they produce shines through every chapter." -- MARION NESTLE, Ph.D., author of What to Eat

"The only voice from within farming that sings of both its pleasures and its pains, Mas Masumoto's words are so deeply rooted in his farmwork that they sweat, sting, and shine all at the same time. America's most articulate orchard-keeper, its most earthy writer, Mas eloquently captures the everyday beauty, heartbreak, and moral complexity of a multigenerational family intent on 'bearing fruit' despite insurmountable odds." -- GARY PAUL NABHAN, author of Renewing America's Food Traditions