by Robert S. Cox and Jacob Walker From the publisher: New Englanders know that cranberries are not for holidays alone. For centuries, this tart fruit—a staple in the Yankee diet […]
Tag: fruit
Citrus: A History
by Pierre Laszlo From the publisher: Walk into your local grocery store and down the produce aisle, and you’ll find a dazzling array of citrus, from navel oranges and clementines […]
Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Columbia, 1899-2000
by Marcelo Bucheli From the publisher: For well over a century, the United Fruit Company (UFCO) has been the most vilified multinational corporation operating in Latin America. Criticism of the […]
Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas
edited by Steve Striffler and Mark Moberg From the publisher: Over the past century, the banana industry has radically transformed Latin America and the Caribbean and become a major site […]
U.S. growers got their first date plants from Morocco, Syria and Algeria
Dates in this country hark back to 1898, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture began sending teams of botanists and horticulturalist around the globe to find crops that would thrive […]
Thousands of historic watercolor paintings of fruit now online
More than 7,500 watercolor paintings, lithographs and line drawings of fruits and nuts commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1886 to 1942 are now online. Their availability is […]
3 books about banana history
If you love kiwi, jackfruit or jicama, thank this woman
“Clad in high heels and a pencil skirt, Frieda Caplan was already an anomaly in the male-dominated produce wholesale markets of the 1950s, a job that came about simply because […]
Bananas became a dietary staple as a health food
Beginning in the early 20th century, the United Fruit Company promoted bananas in a series of pamphlets and ads, taking it from a little-known novelty to a household staple. At […]
California postman discovered the Hass avocado
California postman Rudolph Hass brought back some some avocado seedlings to his home in southern California in 1926 and planted them in his garden. One that wouldn’t bear fruit he […]