Background: “Around 1870 new advances started coming led by new companies with names like Pillsbury, Heinz, Quaker Mill, Lipton. A man named Ezra Warner invented a can opener with a handle and a rotating metal blade. Glass milk bottles appeared on doorsteps, along with orange crates. The crown jewel in home cookware was a tightly lidded pot that used pressure to expedite cooking, sometimes cutting the time in half. With new inventions food became less a chore and even, at times, an experiment”
The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone is a biography of David Fairchild (1869-1954), identified as “The Food Explorer” because he spent much of his life searching throughout the world for new plants to expand the offerings of American agriculture at a time when so much was changing about the way that Americans ate and what crops they grew.
The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone is a biography of David Fairchild (1869-1954), identified as “The Food Explorer” because he spent much of his life searching throughout the world for new plants to expand the offerings of American agriculture at a time when so much was changing about the way that Americans ate and what crops they grew.
There’s a lot in the book: in fact, far too much detail. Along with the interesting facts about the many countries that Fairchild visited and the many new foods and plants he discovered, there’s a very tedious amount of not-so-interesting biographical and botanical trivia. I also felt that there could have been more background about general trends in food history included in the narrative.
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| At the end of the book are a few illustrations of fruits that Fairchild discovered and introduced to American farmers. |
In his long and active life, Fairchild alternated between intense travel and plant collecting with a mentor and wealthy sponsor named Barbour Lathrop and bureaucratic work for the US Department of Agriculture. After many international adventures, Fairchild settled down: he married the daughter of the inventor Alexander Graham Bell, which made him relatively wealthy and also very well-connected. However, he continued to work for the USDA, though laws and attitudes about introductions of new plants became more and more limiting to his goals of finding new crops.
By the time that World War I started, Fairchild’s Agriculture Department was undergoing a lot of changes (which I don’t want to try to relate) — but I was especially impressed by the posters that were produced to encourage food economy:
This is a pretty good book, though it gets tedious in places. It’s definitely not one of my favorite food history books!
blog post © 2025 mae sander
10 comments:
Sounds interesting if you can skim/skip the tedious parts.
I always lose interest when books get to technical with botanical names. It sounds like the book has certain good qualities, though.
I enjoyed this book and all the details. I guess everyone is looking for certain info that speaks to them and this book just wasn't totally what you looking for. Hugs-Erika
great book.... love to read it....
Thank you for sharing your interesting summary.
Good review! Now people can know if it is for them or not. You do a good job of that.
The book may not be the best but the illustrations are fabulous!
This sounds interesting.
I recently read a book about how homes came to be what they are today. It got a little detail heavy, but was still enjoyable and I did learn a lot.
Don’t waste food. Good advice for everyone.
I love this last sign. Also the one above it. Don't wast it.
My mother grew a victory garden during World War II. She continued to grow vegetables throughout my childhood.
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