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The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables by Adam Alexander
lesliewatwar's review against another edition
5.0
If you have ever put a seed in the ground or eaten you have probably asked at some point "Who was the first person to discover this could be eaten without killing them? What made this popular?" Adam Alexander might not have answered those specific questions, but he came real close.
Heirloom gardening has become more and more popular with a focus on perserving our connection to the food we eat. Through Alexander's travels, he has given us a wonderful book that helps us make that connection more clear.
I was overjoyed to read about the vegetables I grow every year so that I can tell my granddaughter more abuut them and it also educated me more on sources to get varieties of seeds that are considered heritage and heirloom. Sidenote- I never knew there was a heritage seed. I had always heard of heirloom.
Being and avid garnder I have bookmarked The Seed Detective with all kinds of marks.
It reads easy with Alexander including stories of his travels in with the history. The book is divided into two parts: Visitors from the East and Visitors from the West..
A recommend for the curous! I am now going to search for more books on the topic of our food history!
Heirloom gardening has become more and more popular with a focus on perserving our connection to the food we eat. Through Alexander's travels, he has given us a wonderful book that helps us make that connection more clear.
I was overjoyed to read about the vegetables I grow every year so that I can tell my granddaughter more abuut them and it also educated me more on sources to get varieties of seeds that are considered heritage and heirloom. Sidenote- I never knew there was a heritage seed. I had always heard of heirloom.
Being and avid garnder I have bookmarked The Seed Detective with all kinds of marks.
It reads easy with Alexander including stories of his travels in with the history. The book is divided into two parts: Visitors from the East and Visitors from the West..
A recommend for the curous! I am now going to search for more books on the topic of our food history!
annieb123's review against another edition
5.0
Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.
The Seed Detective is a very well written and accessible history of 14 vegetables and fruits and how they came to be in their current forms in our culinary lives. Released 29th Sept 2022 by Chelsea Green Publishing, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.
The author is a gifted storyteller and this could easily have been a dry-as-dust recitation with lots of facts and figures. It is emphatically anything but that. The story of food is the story of civilisation and tracing our interactions with the development of different kinds of crops from the first 8 "founder" crops developed and cultivated by our ancestors to our modern specialty brassicas and coloured sprouts.
There are chapter notes with annotations for further reading as well as an abbreviated glossary and index. There are no illustrations in the eARC sent for review, but in my opinion, they would've been superfluous to the text anyhow.
The historical tie-ins are varied, relevant, and educational (including the fact that favism could be the reason Pythagoras (yes, that one) actually died - which was a new one for me).
Four and a half stars. This would be a superlative selection for public or school library acquisition, gift giving, and for gardeners who enjoy natural history. It will make a nice break for long autumn evenings from the knee-high stack of glossy seed magazines dreaming of springtime.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
The Seed Detective is a very well written and accessible history of 14 vegetables and fruits and how they came to be in their current forms in our culinary lives. Released 29th Sept 2022 by Chelsea Green Publishing, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.
The author is a gifted storyteller and this could easily have been a dry-as-dust recitation with lots of facts and figures. It is emphatically anything but that. The story of food is the story of civilisation and tracing our interactions with the development of different kinds of crops from the first 8 "founder" crops developed and cultivated by our ancestors to our modern specialty brassicas and coloured sprouts.
There are chapter notes with annotations for further reading as well as an abbreviated glossary and index. There are no illustrations in the eARC sent for review, but in my opinion, they would've been superfluous to the text anyhow.
The historical tie-ins are varied, relevant, and educational (including the fact that favism could be the reason Pythagoras (yes, that one) actually died - which was a new one for me).
Four and a half stars. This would be a superlative selection for public or school library acquisition, gift giving, and for gardeners who enjoy natural history. It will make a nice break for long autumn evenings from the knee-high stack of glossy seed magazines dreaming of springtime.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
strangeeigenfunction's review against another edition
informative
Very interesting but occasionally chapters are organized in a less than straightforward way, and there were a few passages (mostly beginning and end matter) that I ended up skimming because I wasn't in the headspace to confront eco-anxiety. (I don't know why I didn't anticipate that being an aspect of the book but frankly I didn't.)
kairosdreaming's review against another edition
4.0
*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's Copy from NetGalley.
Alexander knows a lot about plants, particularly what it takes to collect and continue heirloom varieties from around the world (just reading about his setup I am very jealous). I, on the other hand, can't seem to start plants from seeds for anything. But that's ok, the more people explore this work, the more chance I have of picking up an heirloom plant at a farmer's market or other locales.
Separated into East and West, Alexander explores the heritage of well-known plants, not only narrating his own explorations but also digging into the history and origin of the plants as well. I appreciated that he sometimes went into obscure areas, as there are so many varieties of edible plants out there that people just don't know about due to the homogeneity of what we generally find in stores.
That being said, it could get dry at times, and there were certain sections I found myself skimming. While I largely enjoyed the information, some just seemed to be more detail for the sake of detail. But it was nice to see how tomatoes crossed the world (indeed it seemed like the largest chapter was dedicated to them), how many classifications of peppers there are (no it's not just hot and not-hot), and just where beans really originated. I wouldn't have minded a few recipes thrown in for how he uses some of his crops based on the way he described taste and function.
An interesting book, but definitely one for someone who is really into seeds, gardening, or food history.
Review by M. Reynard 2022
Alexander knows a lot about plants, particularly what it takes to collect and continue heirloom varieties from around the world (just reading about his setup I am very jealous). I, on the other hand, can't seem to start plants from seeds for anything. But that's ok, the more people explore this work, the more chance I have of picking up an heirloom plant at a farmer's market or other locales.
Separated into East and West, Alexander explores the heritage of well-known plants, not only narrating his own explorations but also digging into the history and origin of the plants as well. I appreciated that he sometimes went into obscure areas, as there are so many varieties of edible plants out there that people just don't know about due to the homogeneity of what we generally find in stores.
That being said, it could get dry at times, and there were certain sections I found myself skimming. While I largely enjoyed the information, some just seemed to be more detail for the sake of detail. But it was nice to see how tomatoes crossed the world (indeed it seemed like the largest chapter was dedicated to them), how many classifications of peppers there are (no it's not just hot and not-hot), and just where beans really originated. I wouldn't have minded a few recipes thrown in for how he uses some of his crops based on the way he described taste and function.
An interesting book, but definitely one for someone who is really into seeds, gardening, or food history.
Review by M. Reynard 2022