The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats

The true adventures of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century food explorer who traveled the globe and introduced diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes—and thousands more—to the American plate.

In the nineteenth century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a young botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and experience the world, set out in search of foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater.

Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. Fairchild’s finds weren’t just limited to food: From Egypt he sent back a variety of cotton that revolutionized an industry, and via Japan he introduced the cherry blossom tree, forever brightening America’s capital. Along the way, he was arrested, caught diseases, and bargained with island tribes. But his culinary ambition came during a formative era, and through him, America transformed into the most diverse food system ever created.

• The Seven Culinary Wonders of the World: A History of Honey, Salt, Chile, Pork, Rice, Cacao, and Tomato
• Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat
• The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
• The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species
• The World as Garden: The Life and Writings of David Fairchild
• Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas
• Fruits of Eden: David Fairchild and America's Plant Hunters
• You and I Eat the Same: On the Countless Ways Food and Cooking Connect Us to One Another (MAD Dispatches, Volume 1)
• A History of Food
• The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century