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How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables
How Carrots Won the Trojan War is a delightful collection of little-known stories about the origins, legends, and historical significance of 23 of the world's most popular vegetables. Curious cooks, gardeners, and casual readers alike will be fascinated by these far-fetched tales of their favorite foods' pasts. Readers will discover why Roman gladiators were massaged with onion juice before battle, how celery contributed to Casanova's conquests, how peas almost poisoned General Washington, and why some seventeenth-century turnips were considered degenerate.
How Carrots Won the Trojan War is the perfect book for vegetable gardeners, foodies, and anyone else interested in the secret stories behind a salad.
How Carrots Won the Trojan War is the perfect book for vegetable gardeners, foodies, and anyone else interested in the secret stories behind a salad.
376 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2011
98 people are currently reading
1675 people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Rupp
27 books36 followersRebecca Rupp is the author of SARAH SIMPSON'S RULES FOR LIVING, JOURNEY TO THE BLUE MOON, THE DRAGON OF LONELY ISLAND and THE RETURN OF THE DRAGON. She lives in Swanton, Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
December 21, 2014
reviews.metaphorosis.com
4 stars
Subtitled Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables, this is a fun, easy reading book that makes you wonder why no one has written a history of vegetables before. With Rupp's light-hearted approach, the subject suddenly seems an obvious one to explore. (As Rupp's extensive bibliography makes clear, there have, in fact, been many books on similar subjects, but somehow none caught my attention before this.)
Rupp makes no pretense at presenting serious science here. She takes a Mary Roach approach, focused on anecdotes and tidbits. There's the occasional nod at anthocyanins, etc. to explain colors or poisons, but the focus is on human perception of the vegetable in question - which is usually more than amusing. I kept this as my bedtime reading for a couple of weeks, and my wife found she made little progress in her own book, as I was constantly interrupting her with curious facts about cucumbers and pumpkins.
Rupp relies a little too heavily on a few staples - Burpee seed catalogs and Thomas Jefferson - and the book is an appropriate length. More, and the fun might have worn out. But for what it is, it is very amusing and well worth reading.
If you have any interest at all in vegetables, or are just looking for something light to read, take a look at this book.
November 18, 2020
I was kind of disappointed, because I expected each chapter dedicated to a particular vegetable would have ONE in-depth story about the vegetable (for example, the titular chapter on carrots-- expected that to give me a nice narrative about how carrots won the Trojan War).
Instead, each chapter contains many one-sentence facts/stories about the vegetable. But they were just glancingly mentioned. Like, Henry Ford thought carrots held the secret to longevity and once had a 12-course all-carrot mean (carrot soup, carrot salad, carrot mousse, carrot ice cream). Cool, but throwing a bunch of fast facts at me wasn't really what I thought this book was billing itself as.
Plus, it didn't really help that a number of those stories were familiar to me from Choice Cuts, which I read fairly recently.
Here are two of my favourite (and new) facts, though:
1. Cucumbers were once thought to be afraid of thunderstorms, so in Elizabethan times, the cucumber gardener was advised to cover them up with comforting blankets in thunderous weather. (I feel like there's some joke waiting to be said about how this relates to the fact that cats are afraid of cucumbers, but I can't articulate it. Anyone?).
2. There are a lot of local laws about the fact that onions make your breath smell. In Hartsburg, Illinois, it's illegal to eat onions in a movie theatre (brb moving to Hartsburg). In West Virginia, children are forbidden to come to school "smelling of wild onions." And in Alexandria, Minnesota, husbands are forbidden to make love to their wives if their breath smells of garlic, onions, or sardines (my dumbass lawyer brain immediately went, "that sounds unconstitutional, what about the fundamental right to privacy from Lawrence v. Texas?").
Anyway, that's pretty much the review. You could find worse ways to pass the time.
Instead, each chapter contains many one-sentence facts/stories about the vegetable. But they were just glancingly mentioned. Like, Henry Ford thought carrots held the secret to longevity and once had a 12-course all-carrot mean (carrot soup, carrot salad, carrot mousse, carrot ice cream). Cool, but throwing a bunch of fast facts at me wasn't really what I thought this book was billing itself as.
Plus, it didn't really help that a number of those stories were familiar to me from Choice Cuts, which I read fairly recently.
Here are two of my favourite (and new) facts, though:
1. Cucumbers were once thought to be afraid of thunderstorms, so in Elizabethan times, the cucumber gardener was advised to cover them up with comforting blankets in thunderous weather. (I feel like there's some joke waiting to be said about how this relates to the fact that cats are afraid of cucumbers, but I can't articulate it. Anyone?).
2. There are a lot of local laws about the fact that onions make your breath smell. In Hartsburg, Illinois, it's illegal to eat onions in a movie theatre (brb moving to Hartsburg). In West Virginia, children are forbidden to come to school "smelling of wild onions." And in Alexandria, Minnesota, husbands are forbidden to make love to their wives if their breath smells of garlic, onions, or sardines (my dumbass lawyer brain immediately went, "that sounds unconstitutional, what about the fundamental right to privacy from Lawrence v. Texas?").
Anyway, that's pretty much the review. You could find worse ways to pass the time.
October 21, 2013
The premise of this book was interesting, but there were not enough examples of common vegetables saving the ancient world in order to make up an entire book. The examples the author had maybe had enough material for a chapter, and the rest was filler -- like certain recipes or whatever. I applaud the idea but feel misled.
November 23, 2011
This was really interesting but a lot to absorb through steady reading- better perhaps digested over time in smaller helpings. By the time I got to Turnips (last entry) it began to feel a tiny bit formulaic. Lots of fascinating tidbits but the author's research showed a little too strongly. I could have lived without all the references to varieties listed in seed catalogs over the years.
What was best for me were the parts about the geographical origins and changes in various vegetables from first domestication thru modern varieties, some of the science re propagation, ripening, nutritional content, etc and the popular/folkloric views of the various food items over time.
Well worth reading but sitting too long at this table might leave you feeling stuffed.
What was best for me were the parts about the geographical origins and changes in various vegetables from first domestication thru modern varieties, some of the science re propagation, ripening, nutritional content, etc and the popular/folkloric views of the various food items over time.
Well worth reading but sitting too long at this table might leave you feeling stuffed.
February 2, 2020
Yum. I’m going to make it a goal to try parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas before the year is out.
October 11, 2018
… which, by the way, is a misleading title, since the chapter on carrots in Rebecca Rupp’s book only has a fleeting mention of how the Trojan soldiers may have chewed on some sort of carrot while packed into the Trojan horse.
How Carrots Won the Trojan War (and how beans beat back the Dark Ages, how cucumbers mimic pigeons, how eggplants made a holy man faint, how peppers won the Nobel Prize, etc) is all about twenty-three vegetables. Their botany, their history, their chemistry, their popularity, their nutritional value, and their cooking. Beginning with asparagus and ending with turnips, Rupp covers everything from massive 1,800 pounder pumpkins to the diminutive pea, from vegetables (the onion family, for one) that seem to have been universally popular despite everything (that smell!) to beautiful ones (tomatoes) that were for a long time regarded with almost universal suspicion.
Rupp has obviously done a lot of research in different fields connected to vegetables. It shows, in everything from the myths regarding vegetables and their origins, to how some potentially dangerous vegetables must be treated to defang them, as it were. She digs up old recipes—from Roman cookbooks and pioneer woman recipe books, besides others. She discusses the medicinal uses (many of them outright ridiculous) to which vegetables have been put, and the equally ridiculous accusations levelled against vegetables.
For me, the trivia here was delightful—I hadn’t known, for instance, about Henry Ford’s obsession with carrots; or that master criminal John Dillinger supposedly escaped from jail using a pistol carved from a potato and dyed black with iodine. I hadn’t realized that lettuce latex was used by the Soviets in an attempt to replace genuine rubber when their supplies of tropical rubber latex were cut off during World War II. Or that chlorophyll was touted as such a disguiser of foul smells that in the 1950s, there was a chlorophyll craze sweeping industries, seemingly without discrimination.
I didn’t know about the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra (which, by the way, sounds delicious).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwOXF...
To add to the immensely entertaining and enlightening trivia, there’s Rupp’s style, which is often very humorous. Linnaeus, in his botanical taxonomic opus… assigned it for posterity the scientific name Solanum insanum—later revised to Solanum melongena, which means ‘soothing mad apple’, a nice piece of scientific fence-sitting if there ever was one. Or, John Gerard claimed that cucumbers, eaten three times a day in oatmeal porridge, could cure swellings of the face, noses “red as roses”, pimples, “pumples”, and like disasters of the seventeenth-century complexion.
But, there are things about this book that irked me. For one, Rupp takes a very American- and European-centric view of the vegetable world. Yes, there are mentions of how a vegetable (especially those which originated in Africa, South America, or Asia) was used or cultivated or what myths were attached to it, but once, historically speaking, the vegetable arrives in the US, its significance in the rest of the world, as far as Rupp is concerned, seems to grind to a halt. She goes into detail about the number of cultivars grown by Jefferson at his estate in Monticello; she goes on and on about how many cultivars were offered in which year by which American grower, and so on. (Jefferson and the growers, after a while, got very tedious: it was one of the most boringly predictable parts of each chapter).
Also, some of the assertions were, to me, a little off. Celery is still characteristically eaten crisply raw completely negates the almost omnipresent role of celery as a basis for stocks, soups and stews in many cuisines, especially European and American. … India, where the dominant seasoning, curry, teems with capsaicinoids merely reinforces the ignorant Westerner’s belief that curry is some sort of umbrella term for any spicy Indian dish, and … the signature amaranths—grown for grain and used by the Hopi Indians to make a deep red dye means, of course, that Rupp hasn’t done enough research into the world outside the New World and Europe to realize that amaranth leaves are consumed cheerily by many millions in Asia and Africa, for example.
Despite those glitches, though, a fascinating and entertaining look at the world of vegetables.
How Carrots Won the Trojan War (and how beans beat back the Dark Ages, how cucumbers mimic pigeons, how eggplants made a holy man faint, how peppers won the Nobel Prize, etc) is all about twenty-three vegetables. Their botany, their history, their chemistry, their popularity, their nutritional value, and their cooking. Beginning with asparagus and ending with turnips, Rupp covers everything from massive 1,800 pounder pumpkins to the diminutive pea, from vegetables (the onion family, for one) that seem to have been universally popular despite everything (that smell!) to beautiful ones (tomatoes) that were for a long time regarded with almost universal suspicion.
Rupp has obviously done a lot of research in different fields connected to vegetables. It shows, in everything from the myths regarding vegetables and their origins, to how some potentially dangerous vegetables must be treated to defang them, as it were. She digs up old recipes—from Roman cookbooks and pioneer woman recipe books, besides others. She discusses the medicinal uses (many of them outright ridiculous) to which vegetables have been put, and the equally ridiculous accusations levelled against vegetables.
For me, the trivia here was delightful—I hadn’t known, for instance, about Henry Ford’s obsession with carrots; or that master criminal John Dillinger supposedly escaped from jail using a pistol carved from a potato and dyed black with iodine. I hadn’t realized that lettuce latex was used by the Soviets in an attempt to replace genuine rubber when their supplies of tropical rubber latex were cut off during World War II. Or that chlorophyll was touted as such a disguiser of foul smells that in the 1950s, there was a chlorophyll craze sweeping industries, seemingly without discrimination.
I didn’t know about the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra (which, by the way, sounds delicious).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwOXF...
To add to the immensely entertaining and enlightening trivia, there’s Rupp’s style, which is often very humorous. Linnaeus, in his botanical taxonomic opus… assigned it for posterity the scientific name Solanum insanum—later revised to Solanum melongena, which means ‘soothing mad apple’, a nice piece of scientific fence-sitting if there ever was one. Or, John Gerard claimed that cucumbers, eaten three times a day in oatmeal porridge, could cure swellings of the face, noses “red as roses”, pimples, “pumples”, and like disasters of the seventeenth-century complexion.
But, there are things about this book that irked me. For one, Rupp takes a very American- and European-centric view of the vegetable world. Yes, there are mentions of how a vegetable (especially those which originated in Africa, South America, or Asia) was used or cultivated or what myths were attached to it, but once, historically speaking, the vegetable arrives in the US, its significance in the rest of the world, as far as Rupp is concerned, seems to grind to a halt. She goes into detail about the number of cultivars grown by Jefferson at his estate in Monticello; she goes on and on about how many cultivars were offered in which year by which American grower, and so on. (Jefferson and the growers, after a while, got very tedious: it was one of the most boringly predictable parts of each chapter).
Also, some of the assertions were, to me, a little off. Celery is still characteristically eaten crisply raw completely negates the almost omnipresent role of celery as a basis for stocks, soups and stews in many cuisines, especially European and American. … India, where the dominant seasoning, curry, teems with capsaicinoids merely reinforces the ignorant Westerner’s belief that curry is some sort of umbrella term for any spicy Indian dish, and … the signature amaranths—grown for grain and used by the Hopi Indians to make a deep red dye means, of course, that Rupp hasn’t done enough research into the world outside the New World and Europe to realize that amaranth leaves are consumed cheerily by many millions in Asia and Africa, for example.
Despite those glitches, though, a fascinating and entertaining look at the world of vegetables.
March 20, 2019
The best book I've read all year! Just to get the idea, here are the names of my favorite chapters:
-In which Cucumbers Imitate Pigeons
-In which Corn Creates Vampires
-In which Peas Almost Poison General Washington
-In which Potatoes Baffle the Conquistadors
I recommend it to everyone!
-In which Cucumbers Imitate Pigeons
-In which Corn Creates Vampires
-In which Peas Almost Poison General Washington
-In which Potatoes Baffle the Conquistadors
I recommend it to everyone!
August 5, 2014
How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (But True) Stories of Common Vegetables is a delightful romp into the history of the vegetables gracing our common tables from noted expert and author Rebecca Rupp.
The research she provides, with good humor and aplomb, makes for a spirited easy read and makes for great conversation starters at your next foodie-centric event. From carrots to turnips (and a lot in between), Rupp digests mountains of anecdotes and information from sources the merely curious could never find and lays them out in ways that make the mind and tummy spin.
There is more than enough here to keep the most ardent gardener or food history buff entertained with amusing and truthful facts. “The trouble is you cannot grow just one,” Rupp quotes humorist Dave Barry on the prolific nature of the Zucchini. “Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of Zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden menacing other vegetables – at night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more Zucchinis erupt.” Words any gardener – or foodie – can relate to.
Edible Notes received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and received no additional compensation for this review. Copyright2011, Edible Notes
The research she provides, with good humor and aplomb, makes for a spirited easy read and makes for great conversation starters at your next foodie-centric event. From carrots to turnips (and a lot in between), Rupp digests mountains of anecdotes and information from sources the merely curious could never find and lays them out in ways that make the mind and tummy spin.
There is more than enough here to keep the most ardent gardener or food history buff entertained with amusing and truthful facts. “The trouble is you cannot grow just one,” Rupp quotes humorist Dave Barry on the prolific nature of the Zucchini. “Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of Zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden menacing other vegetables – at night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more Zucchinis erupt.” Words any gardener – or foodie – can relate to.
Edible Notes received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and received no additional compensation for this review. Copyright2011, Edible Notes
July 13, 2013
This is a fascinating little book, packed full of veggie facts. Among other things, I learned that tomatoes are legally a vegetable in spite of being, botanically, a fruit. Reading this book, in fact, made me hungry, and I went out and consumed raw vegetables for the first time in I don't know how long. Like a lot of books of trivia, though, it might be best consumed in small doses rather than all at once -- as a bedtime or toilet reading, perhaps.
I'm going to pass it on to my father, a PhD botanist.
I'm going to pass it on to my father, a PhD botanist.
June 6, 2012
I enjoyed this book. Did you know there were vegetables that could not be eaten in mixed company? I am a trivia nut, and this satisfied my need for useless knowledge. It was entertaining as well as factual.
November 22, 2017
Funny and informative book about veggies. Great if you like trivia of common garden foods. Got a little long by the end, though.
June 13, 2025
I really enjoyed the premise of the book and several stories were very interesting but it got monotonous towards the end.
February 19, 2019
It was really interesting hearing all of these crazy stories about vegetables. It really makes me appreciate them and it has actually encouraged me to eat more vegetables.
June 23, 2019
I did not enjoy reading this book. Too long and deceiving to the reader. I assumed it would be humorous from the catchy chapter titles and darling illustrations. Wrong! It read on an on about detIls on vegetables😜 I was determined to finish it as it was a book club choice, but oh what a chore. Rethinking the book club.😏
November 9, 2025
Really interesting bit of food history / botany writing!
February 5, 2016
The book cover caught my attention immediately. I was intrigued by the title as my freshman English classes were in the middle of reading the Odyssey. Each chapter focuses on one vegetable and how it has shaped the Western world's table. Rupp dug deep to find interesting and weird stories about each vegetables' brief spot in the limelight. However, I felt that many of the chapters drew too often from the same sources and that the book was decidedly Euro/Amero centric. I also reread the carrot chapter 3 times and never found the story of "How Carrots Won the Trojan War." Beyond that though, the book was fun and quirky. I recommend reading this if you are interested in European/American food history.
February 13, 2026
This book was sometimes interesting but sometimes inconsistent. It was awkward that the author claimed she was “not alone” in hating lima beans—because two fictional characters also disliked them. She told a story and heavily implied it was true, then immediately negated it, which ripped the believability right out of the entire book. She also bashed natural remedies that work in order to push Big Pharma medications.
Honestly, I couldn’t take this book seriously at all.
Content: gambling, expletives, alcohol (including in food), innuendo and crude sexual references, profanity, sexual immorality, marital affairs
Honestly, I couldn’t take this book seriously at all.
Content: gambling, expletives, alcohol (including in food), innuendo and crude sexual references, profanity, sexual immorality, marital affairs
March 22, 2014
I tend to enjoy books with lots of fun little factoids, and this unpretentious and funny little volume did not disappoint. I read one chapter each week and made a rule that I had to buy the vegetable in the chapter I was reading whenever I went to the grocery store.
January 9, 2012
The facts come fast and furious. The retention can probably be improved by reading the book in small bits and pieces
August 29, 2014
A frequently delicious compendium of legends, historical and cultural facts, and other fascinating tidbits about vegetables. Interesting and entertaining.
September 6, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Food History
Rebecca Rupp takes the humble veggie patch and turns it into a theater of war, love, superstition, and survival. How Carrots Won the Trojan War is one of those books that makes you look at a salad and think, Wow, you guys have been through some stuff.
The conceit is delightful: each chapter tells the “biography” of a vegetable, from carrots and cucumbers to onions, peas, and pumpkins. But instead of dry botany, Rupp weaves in mythology, folklore, medicine, and history. The carrot, for instance, wasn’t always orange—its hues ranged from purple to white before Dutch growers bred it into a patriotic shade for the House of Orange. The book’s title comes from a legend that Greek soldiers used carrot-root poultices to soothe battle wounds and maybe even keep their eyesight sharp at Troy. (Carrots: ancient military rations with a PR boost.)
The stories are gloriously strange. Cucumbers were once accused of causing madness. Beans were considered portals to the underworld. Onions were treated as both food and talismans, warding off evil and preserving the dead. Pumpkins transformed from Native American staples into Halloween icons. Rupp peppers her prose with quirky details, like Thomas Jefferson’s obsessive vegetable gardening or the way Victorians wrote rhapsodic poetry about asparagus.
What I liked most is the tone—playful but well-researched. It never tips into parody; instead, it makes you feel like you’re being let in on a string of vegetable gossip, whispered across centuries. Suddenly, your dinner plate isn’t just nutrition—it’s folklore, empire, and science bundled into edible form.
Placed alongside Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, which gives plants the starring role in their own evolutionary drama, Rupp’s book feels like the companion piece from the garden’s gossip column. Pollan makes you think potatoes are plotting global domination; Rupp convinces you carrots are secretly running historical reenactments.
Reading it, I caught myself staring at a bunch of beets in the market, wondering what secret wars and scandals they’d lived through. That’s the charm—Rupp makes vegetables impossible to ignore.
Rebecca Rupp takes the humble veggie patch and turns it into a theater of war, love, superstition, and survival. How Carrots Won the Trojan War is one of those books that makes you look at a salad and think, Wow, you guys have been through some stuff.
The conceit is delightful: each chapter tells the “biography” of a vegetable, from carrots and cucumbers to onions, peas, and pumpkins. But instead of dry botany, Rupp weaves in mythology, folklore, medicine, and history. The carrot, for instance, wasn’t always orange—its hues ranged from purple to white before Dutch growers bred it into a patriotic shade for the House of Orange. The book’s title comes from a legend that Greek soldiers used carrot-root poultices to soothe battle wounds and maybe even keep their eyesight sharp at Troy. (Carrots: ancient military rations with a PR boost.)
The stories are gloriously strange. Cucumbers were once accused of causing madness. Beans were considered portals to the underworld. Onions were treated as both food and talismans, warding off evil and preserving the dead. Pumpkins transformed from Native American staples into Halloween icons. Rupp peppers her prose with quirky details, like Thomas Jefferson’s obsessive vegetable gardening or the way Victorians wrote rhapsodic poetry about asparagus.
What I liked most is the tone—playful but well-researched. It never tips into parody; instead, it makes you feel like you’re being let in on a string of vegetable gossip, whispered across centuries. Suddenly, your dinner plate isn’t just nutrition—it’s folklore, empire, and science bundled into edible form.
Placed alongside Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, which gives plants the starring role in their own evolutionary drama, Rupp’s book feels like the companion piece from the garden’s gossip column. Pollan makes you think potatoes are plotting global domination; Rupp convinces you carrots are secretly running historical reenactments.
Reading it, I caught myself staring at a bunch of beets in the market, wondering what secret wars and scandals they’d lived through. That’s the charm—Rupp makes vegetables impossible to ignore.
July 21, 2019
3.5 stars, rounded up to four for the effort in trying to make vegetables interesting.
This is an entertaining book rather than an informative one; it’s a collection of fun facts chapter by chapter related to a class of vegetable, always including the food's current use and (un)popularity, historical use, evolution and spread, historical anecdotes which may or may not be true, definitely untrue historical “medical” applications, and where applicable, modern medical and health benefits. It’s all a very light and entertaining read, which unfortunately means nothing much sticks with you because it’s all rather disconnected. I also was a little irritated with the titles and subtitles, promising wildly interesting stories that ended up often be only half a sentence, such as how carrots were in fact involved in the Trojan war (spoiler: they fed soldiers waiting in the wooden horse. -.-"). Much more interesting were facts about how peppers got their name and spiciness ratings, how beans and potatoes changed the world, and that garlic is an insect repellent. Lastly, some chapters were far less interesting than others; a consequence of the author starting from a list of vegetables rather than a list of interesting history, I suspect.
This is an entertaining book rather than an informative one; it’s a collection of fun facts chapter by chapter related to a class of vegetable, always including the food's current use and (un)popularity, historical use, evolution and spread, historical anecdotes which may or may not be true, definitely untrue historical “medical” applications, and where applicable, modern medical and health benefits. It’s all a very light and entertaining read, which unfortunately means nothing much sticks with you because it’s all rather disconnected. I also was a little irritated with the titles and subtitles, promising wildly interesting stories that ended up often be only half a sentence, such as how carrots were in fact involved in the Trojan war (spoiler: they fed soldiers waiting in the wooden horse. -.-"). Much more interesting were facts about how peppers got their name and spiciness ratings, how beans and potatoes changed the world, and that garlic is an insect repellent. Lastly, some chapters were far less interesting than others; a consequence of the author starting from a list of vegetables rather than a list of interesting history, I suspect.
December 22, 2019
A really interesting book about the history of different vegetables. It covers the history, culinary significance of the genetic and geographical origins to historical anecdotes of different vegetables from the brinjal, carrots, tomatoes to beetroots, turnips, and chilies. Several of the stories are funny or illustrative of different periods of history. The book though mainly focusses on the USA and not so much on the rest of the world when it comes to history.
The book has a lot of interesting information and took quite a while to read through and is meant to be digested in small chunks (like a diet) to enjoy it more. It is also a curious look at how the stuff that gets to our table is grown and got there over the years. The book focusses less on science (though it has some of it) but more on historical titbits which make it fun rather than a dry read. Probably 3.5 stars for the novelty.
The book has a lot of interesting information and took quite a while to read through and is meant to be digested in small chunks (like a diet) to enjoy it more. It is also a curious look at how the stuff that gets to our table is grown and got there over the years. The book focusses less on science (though it has some of it) but more on historical titbits which make it fun rather than a dry read. Probably 3.5 stars for the novelty.
October 30, 2023
Each of the twenty chapters provides a random series of facts, stories and myths about a different vegetable. If you are thrilled to discover that beets are in the same genus as quinoa, or want to read how this or that vegetable was eaten by the Greeks or early Americans, or want to read how some ancient Roman, medieval doctor or shaman used some vegetable as a cure for everything from a hangover to cancer, then this is the book for you.
It would be better to consume it one chapter at a time over several months rather than trying to read it cover to cover.
It would be better to consume it one chapter at a time over several months rather than trying to read it cover to cover.
July 3, 2018
Wow so many fun facts and history. My fave chapters were potatoes and corn.
The author is not a scientist. All the stuff about antioxidants is outdated. Most chapters were a little too long. Some editing was needed. But I appreciate the research and voice and humor.
What I learned: Catherine de Medici is a huge deal to French culture and a big Spinach lover. And so many other things I can’t find the space to include here.
The author is not a scientist. All the stuff about antioxidants is outdated. Most chapters were a little too long. Some editing was needed. But I appreciate the research and voice and humor.
What I learned: Catherine de Medici is a huge deal to French culture and a big Spinach lover. And so many other things I can’t find the space to include here.
October 26, 2018
4.5
I loved this book, everyone thinks it's weird to read a vegetable book, but it's actually pretty great. There are a few chapters that are a bit dense and slow but for the most part this is a very interesting book. I learned a lot. The title implied that there would be more anecdotes and I expected them to be more fleshed out which was a little disappointing but overall this book is definitely worth a read.
I loved this book, everyone thinks it's weird to read a vegetable book, but it's actually pretty great. There are a few chapters that are a bit dense and slow but for the most part this is a very interesting book. I learned a lot. The title implied that there would be more anecdotes and I expected them to be more fleshed out which was a little disappointing but overall this book is definitely worth a read.
January 11, 2019
I really really wanted to like this book more but it followed a very specific pattern for each chapter to the point that my eyes began scanning for "Thomas Jefferson grew X varieties at Monticello" (which was literally in every chapter almost verbatim). The information was very interesting but it was presented dryly and towards the end I was struggling to get through it. I'm a little sad because the fun tidbits that were there really were good and I wanted more like that.
July 4, 2022
As a gardener and a cook I absolutely adore this book! It takes all the veggies I grow and love and gives them extra meaning. There is just so much I never knew! A host of historical figures from George Washington, Kit Carson and Henry Ford to Pliny the Elder, Louis the XIV and Christopher Columbus play a part in this funny and fascinating read. Every vegetable I can think of from asparagus to zucchini has a story and I loved every one! I highly recommend this wonderful read!!
dnf
April 17, 2018"historically, asparagus is a pure sex food. it's aphrodisiacal renown dates to antiquity and is derived from the undeniably penile shape of the emerging stalks, which pop suggestively out of the ground in early spring, just as a young mans fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" suddenly not only am i a lesbian ,i am also never ever ever going to eat a vegetable again rebecca
May 1, 2018
I give this one 3.5 stars. It was a slower read than others in the genre by Ridley and Bodanis, et al but it was still filled with interesting histories of, yes, vegetables. My favorites were the tie-in of Russian tales in the chapter about the turnip and the story of Reverend Chauncey Goodrich of Utica, NY who developed a blight-resistant potato in 1853.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews