This is really a solid book - sort of a gateway book - it purports to be about the potato, but it's really about land tenancy laws, enclosure, the advent of crop rotation, population growth,famine, fuel costs, social history of home baking & the like. The chapter "Women's Work" could be an article to stand on its own. He even gets into discussion of the use of utensils, dishes & pots - and given the late adaptation of forks in the US, and the ongoing use of knives for eating in England - it's no wonder that my granddad, who was born in 1910 to English emigrants to who moved SW Pennsylvania to mine coal, perpetually vexed my grandmother with his ingrained habit of eating off his butter knife. He would always laugh and repeat the rhyme of "I eat my peas with honey..." before switching to a fork to please her.
REVIEW: The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman
RATING: 4-stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.
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