Technology, Engineering & Agriculture
April 2015
How we came to eat the plants we do
Have you ever wondered why we eat wheat, rice, potatoes and cassava? Why we routinely domesticate foodstuffs with the power to kill us, or why we chose almonds over acorns? Answering all these questions and more in a readable and friendly style, this book takes you on a journey through our history with crop plants.
Arranged into recurrent themes in plant domestication, this book documents the history and biology of over 50 crops, including cereals, spices, legumes, fruits and cash crops such as chocolate, tobacco and rubber.
In The Nature of Crops John Warren reveals:
-Why the Egyptians worshipped onions;
-Why red-flowering runner beans provide fewer beans than white-flowering;
-The inherent dangers of being a pineapple worker; and
-Why a bird will always beat you in a chilli pepper eating competition! ; Our ancestors chose to cultivate some plant species and not others. Through years of association with humans, these wild plants have been changed so that the crops we eat often hardly resemble their wild progenitors. Arranged into broad themes depicting the history of domestication, this book documents the history and biology of over 40 crops. ; 1: Introduction: The Nature of Natural - What does domestication involve?2: Wild Things - Recently domesticated crops and crops that have returned to the wild3: Learning to Live with Exotic Sexual Practices - How plant breeding systems limit domestication4: Storing up Trouble - Plants with storage organs5: The Weird and Wonderful - Herbs, spices and crops with exotic phytochemicals6: Accidents of History - The role of chance events in domestication7: Classic Combinations and Reoccurring Themes - Plant families that have been repeatedly domesticated8: Ownership and Theft - How the economic value of crops has influenced their domestication9: Fifty Shades of Green - Nutrient rich crops and the next generation
