Page 10 - Palm City Spotlight - September '22

Page 10, Palm City Spotlight

Book revieW

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

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September 22nd

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