Tomatoes, Potatoes, Corn, and Beans: How the Foods of the Americas Changed Eating Arou

Gr. 6^-10. It's hard to believe that maize and potatoes were once exotic foods in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and that the plants brought back from the Americas turned out to be of far greater value than any gold or silver. Johnson blends history, botany, geography, folklore, cookery, and art in a fascinating account of how Columbus' "discovery" in 1492 began an exchange of foods between the Americas and the Old World that improved the lives of millions. The prose style is not as lively as that in Milton Meltzer's The Amazing Potato (1992), but Johnson devotes a chapter each to maize, beans, peppers, peanuts, tomatoes, chocolate, and potatoes, showing how the plants were cultivated and used by Native Americans, how the foods spread across the world, and how, in many cases, they developed and became staple national dishes in their new homes. The illustrations on every page include many reprints from Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the chapter notes and bibliography will help readers find out more for class assignments and personal interest. Food is always a lively natural way to explore cultures and connections. Hazel Rochman

Provides a close-up look at the various foods--including potatoes, corn, beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash, and peanuts--that originated in the New World and explains how they each made their way to Europe and changed eating habits in various regions of the world.

Grade 7-10. What do tomatoes, chocolate, beans, corn, peppers, and peanuts have in common? Johnson gives a straightforward overview of these and other foods that are native to the Americas, with a discussion of their early use, methods of preparation, and how they were transported and adapted beyond American borders. The presentation includes a variety of black-and-white photographic reproductions, botanical diagrams, and early food advertisements that add interest and expand understanding. Extensive endnotes for each chapter also give additional information. Useful for social-history collections as well as any library needing information about the history of foodstuffs.?Lois McCulley, Wichita Falls High School, TX
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Subtitled ``How the Foods of the Americas Changed Eating Around the World,'' this is a tedious history of the foods that originated in America and are now eaten worldwide. The subject should be fascinating but the thesis is not particularly profound: ``The exchange of foods between the Americas and the Old World improved the lives of millions. . . . Their diets were more nutritious and much more varied and interesting.'' For most readers, there is more information than they ever wanted or needed on the subject of maize, beans, peppers, peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, etc. Johnson (Roses Red, Violets Blue, 1991, etc.) stuffs in as many facts as possible, e.g., in describing beans--``kidney, green, black, navy, pinto, wax, and lima''--she notes that they produce ``flatulence,'' a condition known as ``windiness'' in the 1500s; ``today we commonly call it gas,'' and the discussion doesn't end there. Strictly for research, this history has a redeeming quality: the lovely 16th- and 17th-century black-and-white illustrations and archival prints reproduced from old herbals and antique books. (index, not seen, maps, notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.