“How Carrots Won the Trojan War:
Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables”
By Rebecca Rupp, Storey, 376 pages.
When you sit down to dinner this evening, what kind of vegetables will you be eating? You are eating your veggies, right? Well, if not, you aren’t alone in your decision to skip the green stuff. There will always be vegetable-haters, but would it surprise you to learn that a 21st century distaste for veggies is very different from the intense dislike, even distrust of vegetables that many of our ancestors felt? Yes, it’s true — once upon a time, eating plant-based food was perceived as a foolish and dangerous venture.
Not eating vegetables is a completely foreign concept to me. I love veggies so much that my husband likes to tease me about turning into a rabbit. This is why the title “How Carrots Won the Trojan War” intrigued me enough to check it out from the library. I know that vegetables are awesome, but influencing the course of history? Priceless. Once I started reading, I soon discovered an engaging, selective review of history through the “eyes” of vegetables: roots, stems and all.
In the book’s introduction, author Rebecca Rupp gets right to the point (or should I say “to the root”) of humans’ early misgivings about vegetables. Many 21st century consumers may embrace and celebrate all things garden-grown, but according to Rupp, “For a substantial chunk of human history … a lot of people have turned their noses up at vegetables. In Europe, vegetables [were] unflatteringly dubbed ‘rude herbs and roots.'” Fortunately, this aversion to “rude herbs and roots” was not long-lived; in fact, many vegetables have played very interesting roles in the history of mankind.
When compared to eggs, which are a powerhouse in the protein department, beans “pack 34 percent as much protein,” and for early explorers such as Lewis and Clark beans were obviously much easier to transport than the nutritious but extremely fragile egg.
