Leafing Through a review of books, blogs,
magazines, film, etc.
Rebecca Rupp’s collection of tales in How Carrots Won the Trojan War delivers an entertaining and authorita- tive history on mankind’s relationship to garden edibles from asparagus to zucchini. The book covers the science and history of nutrition—the roles of war, globalization and political influence on vegetables and grains—and it delves into the more romantic side of food through culture, folklore and fairy tales.
How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables By Rebecca Rupp (Storey Publishing, 2011)
As Rupp takes us on a flavorful journey through Rapunzel’s fairy tale (which begins with a preg-
nant woman’s craving for radishes) we find new mean- ing both in the lore and the radish. We learn about the beginning of farming when reading, “Lentils, along with barley and einkorn wheat, were among the first plants domesticated some 10,000 years ago in western Asia’s lush Fertile Crescent,” and we are introduced to histori- cal figures such as the ancient Greek Pythagoras, the “Father of Vegetarianism,” Leo Tolstoy (also a vegetar- ian), and Mark Twain, who famously said that broccoli is “nothing but a cabbage with a college education.” We are amused to learn that Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations was based on an old folk song, “Kraut and Ruben.”
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Rupp’s sense of humor brings us laugh-out- Winter/Spring 2012
greenwomanmagazine.com
loud quotes such as this one from Laurie Coleman, in More Home Cooking (1995), “They (lima beans) are pillowy, velvety, and delicious, and people should stop saying mean things about them.” Rupp’s stories make vegetables seem more like people as we investigate their struggles and heritage; carrots are glorified (did you know there is a world Carrot Museum?) and George Washington’s favorite, asparagus (or sparrowgrass), is immortalized.
But there’s more in this jam-packed, 349-page book. Culinary culture is explored through ancient recipes; we see what a dinner party was like in 1663 and learn that Thomas Jefferson’s fondness for dining on vegetables was very much against the norm in early America. In the science department, we learn how spin- ach got a bad rap by a misplaced decimal point, that L- dopa was discovered through the fava bean, and that the fabulous watermelon has 40 percent more lycopene than tomatoes ( or “love apples”). Facts like “Scotchgard was born from cabbage” and “sour kraut was used to fight scurvy,” keep you turning pages.
If you are looking for inspiration to plant a gar- den, you will find it here. It’s also a perfect pocket-book; flip it open at any page to find an interesting read. It would make a perfect gift for any gardener or vegetable lover. —Kathleen Lindemann
Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet Bill McKibben (Times Books, 2010)
In 1989 McKibben published The End of Nature, regarded as the first book about climate change written for a general audience. At that time, even
with all the empirical evidence supporting climate change, it appeared that with proper action, the unsavory
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