
The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
Tom Verde
Daniel Stone
2018, Dutton, 978-1-10199-059-9, $17 pb.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries botanist David Fairchild was a “plant explorer” for the United States Department of Agriculture. His mission: “to scour the planet for new foods and plants and bring them back to enliven his country.” Americans who today enjoy avocados, mangos, dates, pistachios and papayas, consume foods made from soybeans or sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets, have Fairchild to thank. This book traces his journeys. In Egypt he was “as eager to see the place where farming was invented as a matador might find a pilgrimage to Spain,” though cotton, a crop introduced in 1800, was of particular interest to him. In Baghdad he “amassed hundreds of dates” as well as new strains of wheat, barley, chickpea and maize. Indonesian mangosteens—cousins of mangos—were among his favorite fruits, but their thick skins and meager flesh were too much trouble for American consumers. This is an entertaining, informative culinary armchair read.
You may also be interested in...
Child's Play: Reconstructing Everyday Life of Youth in Ancient Egypt
Egyptologist Amandine Marshall observes how the depictions of children created by Ancient Egyptians seldom illustrated their actual lives.The Ebb and Flow of History on the Zambezi River
In tracing the past six centuries of history, historian Malyn Hewitt captures the cyclical rise and fall of the river and its people.Essays Unpack the Evolving Hajj and Umrah Experience
This volume of essays juxtaposes historical first-hand narratives of Hajj and Umrah journeys with oral interviews of contemporary pilgrims to show the transformative power of storytelling.