Page 8 - Hobe Sound Reflections - September '22

Page 8, Hobe Sound

book review

The Secret History Of Food: tall and dependable who ‘discovered’ it in the sixteenth century and called it
Strange But True Stories grain they could live vainilla, a Spanish derivative of the Latin vagina, because
on. So it was a lot
of its resemblance when spread open to harvest its seeds
About The Origins Of like dating in high (and probably because they hadn’t seen their wives in a
long time). They then brought the plants back home to
school.”
Everything We Eat Those of us of Europe and spent three hundred years trying in vain to
a certain age will pollinate them because they couldn’t find the rostellum.
By Nils A. Shapiro remember the (Insert clitoris joke here.)”
On Page 141 of this ubiquitous chain of One of the things we learn in the chapter, “Attack
month’s selection, author Howard Johnson of the Killer Tomatoes,” is that it took six years of
Matt Siegel connects restaurants, 1,000 escalating court battles before the U.S. Supreme Court
comments by two other of which lined the took the case that led to a key decision in 1893: “Supreme
writers to make an nation’s highways Court justices read from various dictionaries and heard
interesting point: and dotted big cities testimony from expert witnesses before ultimately ruling
“Average Americans during and after that tomatoes were vegetables because they ‘are, like
and Europeans not only live the World War II potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower,
better than more than 99 era, a new location celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner...and not,
percent of the human beings opening every nine like fruits generally, as dessert.’”
who have ever existed, they days. They were famous for their giant outdoor signage Such other chapter titles as “A History of Swallowing,”
live better than most of the royalty of history...gas-station advertising 28 flavors of ice cream. This book’s chapter, “Pie, Progress, and Plymouth Rock,” “Breakfast of
minimarts now sell cabernets and chardonnays ‘far “The Vanilla of Society,” points out among its many tasty Champions” and “Honey Laundering” further attest to
superior in quality to the wines once drunk by the kings facts that Mr. Johnson himself once admitted that most the variety of topics and the author’s sense of humor.
of France.’ Today supermarkets offer at low cost dozens people simply preferred vanilla. One doesn’t often find on a literary menu a tasty
of items almost anyone who has ever lived considered Of course, while the author does not claim this as the smorgasbord of hearty information, served with a
unattainable delicacies and died without tasting.” reason for the flavor’s overwhelming popularity, he does generous helping of sweet wit. I strongly recommend
It is an interesting point most of us never even think point out the following: that you place your order for The Secret History of Food
about. And by the time you reach that paragraph in “ ... vanilla is one of the few ice cream flavors to be as soon as possible.
this 270-page book, (193 of text plus 77 of Notes and named after genitalia, thanks to Spanish conquistadors
Index), you will already have learned many hundreds
of surprising, even shocking, facts about a subject that
consumes us every day of our lives.
Even better, the whole is served up deliciously by a
writer with a sense of humor that prompted one reviewer
to describe this as “a laugh-out-loud funny read.” You’re Retired
Siegel has written about food and culture for such
publications as The Atlantic, Fast Company, and The Your Money Isn’t.
Paris Review. He is a former English professor who
lives with his dog, Waffles. Having now read The Secret
History of Food, I would unhesitatingly place him at the To learn why consolidating your
top of my list of ideal dinner companions. retirement accounts to Edward Jones
It is clear that the author has done a great deal of makes sense, contact your Edward
research in the development of this book. He covers an
impressive range of topics related to this one subject, Jones nancial advisor today.
taking us on a journey that extends from mankind’s
earliest days on this planet to the present day – and
includes both the ways in which humans have altered the
very nature of the foods we eat and the impact that foods Sally S Stahl, AAMS® www.edwardjones.com
have had on us, physically and psychologically. Financial Advisor M e m b P I S r e C
As just one example of human intervention, here is an 1851 W Indiantown Rd Ste 106
excerpt from the chapter on corn (originally called teosinte); Jupiter, FL 33458
some of the text has been omitted for lack of space: 561-748-7600
“We’re not even sure what the people who first ate
teosinte actually did with it; for starters, an ear of it
contained only five to twelve kernels compared to the five
to twelve hundred on an ear of corn today, and each of
them was only around one-tenth the weight of a modern
kernel. So an entire ear of teosinte would have been about
the size of a cigarette, though probably shorter. And
there wasn’t a central cob, so you couldn’t eat the whole
thing ... You could eat only the tiny kernels, which were
individually wrapped in an almost impenetrable outer
casing ... Yet for some reason our ancestors saw potential
in this lowly grass and kept replanting it, choosing only Est. 1926
the seeds with the most attractive traits – say, height, girth, The Heart of Hobe Sound
tenderness, and disease resistance – until it grew into a

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