Cabbages and Kings by Jonathan Roberts, HarperCollins,
拢18.99, ISBN 0002202077
IT WAS an easy mistake to make. Intent on establishing a silk industry in
Britain, James I ordained that mulberry trees be made available. Unfortunately,
he ordered the black variety, rather than the white on which the silkworm grows.
James never established sericulture, but instead left as his legacy mulberry
bushes that can still be found in the gardens of most 17th-century English
houses. This is but one of the hundreds of fascinating facts that fly off the
page in this invigorating run-through of the history of fruit and veg.
Here too you can discover how the greengage got its name, why the banana is
seedless, how gooseberries came to double in size, and why the potato should be
banned by the Food Standards Agency. Cabbages and Kings may be a bit
wobbly on genetics, and a bibliography would be valuable, but nonetheless this
richly illustrated book is an absolute peach.
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An added bonus is that there is none of the usual final-chapter polemics.
Nonetheless, there is a clear message: if you were ever under the illusion that
the plant matter passing your lips was natural, think again. Just about
everything on the supermarket shelves is the result of centuries鈥攐r even
millennia鈥攐f selective tinkering with the original wild versions, which
were small, tasteless, inedible or toxic. Genetic modification is just the
latest in the ancient arsenal of crop-improving tricks.