The history of food in the United States can be divided into two periods: before David Fairchild and after David Fairchild.
Fairchild, who lived from 1869 to 1954, was a botanist and adventurer who traveled around the world at a time when few people ever left the country. He went to other countries, sometimes braving dangerous conditions to do so, to send back seeds and cuttings of plants, unknown on this continent, that he thought might be able to grow here and help the agriculture industry.
Before Fairchild set out on his mission, American agriculture was in a rut, according to Daniel Stone, author of "The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats" (Dutton, 397 pages, $28). People ate meat, particularly pork, cheese and bread. Fruits and vegetables were rare, and often viewed with suspicion.
Then came Fairchild, who visited more than 50 countries by boat and sent back thousands of seeds and cuttings. Some could not be grown efficiently in American soil, some never found a wide American audience. But an impressive number of others hit their marks.
"You can see his legacy when you walk into a supermarket and you see mangos that are native to the Philippines, when you sleep on sheets that are made of Egyptian cotton that he brought to this country, when you eat types of citrus, oranges and lemons that are native to China, when you drink American beer, because of the hops that he brought at the end of the 19th century," Stone said from his home in Washington, D.C.
It's not just mangos, Egyptian cotton, some varieties of citrus and hops that were better for beer than the types already being grown here. Fairchild also introduced avocados to these shores. And dates. And pistachios. And cashews (they were popular but could not be grown here). And soybeans. And red seedless grapes. And kale. And citron.
The story of how Fairchild came to get the citron cuttings is one of the more dramatic in a book full of dramatic stories. He was just 25 and alone in Corsica, with no official papers and only slight knowledge of French. He was arrested on suspicion of being a spy of some sort — which is kind of what he was. A culinary and agricultural spy.
"He was an economist, he was a botanist, he was a traveler, an adventurer; he was a diplomat. He really combined all those skills to have a transformative effect on the country," Stone said.