Hello everyone, I'm hoping that you will be interested in joining me in a discussion of this most fascinating and nice to read book.

Nellie I have the book - in fact I've had it for some time - I too often bite off more than I can chew so according to when this book is discussed I would like to join you.

Barbara, how nice to see you! I'd love it if you join me in discussing this fascinating book!

please count me in.

Hello Catbird, how nice that you will be joining in with us while we discuss this interesting book!

I just pre-ordered the paperback version at B&N. It will not be out until May. Hope this discussion does not start before I receive it.....

Hi Catbird!

I was just coming here to ask which of the following would be the best time for discussing this book:

July?

September?

I hate to put this off but oh the idea of Apples and September - but July would be nice as well since it is a slim book with four neat seperations - whatever you deside would be nice - I just want to read this book.

For the above reason, I'd prefer September. Thanks..

I was thinking the same thing about apples and September, Barbara. And I will make that the choice for when to discuss it.

has written an article in today's NYTimes magazine about the meat industry in the US....have not read it yet....but saw the writer's name and saved it for later ....look for word "Steer"..

Thanks Catbird! Sounds interesting.

I just bought this book. Would love to discuss it. I think I'll take it along to Alaska the second half of June, so sometime after that would be best for me.

Welcome Bea!

I have ordered this book and will be joining the discussion......

Tigerliley, welcome and I'm happy that you will be joining the discussion.

Welcome everyone!
to our discussion of Botany of Desire.

In our discussion of this fascinating book, we will take a close look at four plants the lives of which have become intertwined with our own, and with our basic desires.

The plants are: the apple, the tulip, marijuanna, and the potato.

But we begin our discussion with the introduction, which is aptly titled The Human Bumblebee and then go on to look at the apple, and perhaps its greatest champion: Johnny Appleseed.

All thoughts, comments, opinions are heartily welcomed here

---

Aside: I know I'm a day early, but I don't always make it here early in the morning and did not want to leave everyone waiting around for me tomorrow.

Oh I do want to join the read of this book - my plate is full just now but I have decided to shut down my TV for the month and I should be able to peak in a bit later - Nellie are you doing a section a week - I hope so because I could read a section in the next few day -

P.S. whoops just skimmed past the heading and as I scrolled bacj there is the schedule - great!

Welcome Barbara! Yes I am going section by section.

A quote from the Introduction xv

...All those plants care about is what every being cares about on the most basic genetic level: making more copies of itself. Through trial and error these plant species have found that the best way to do that is to induce animals-bees or people, it hardly matters-to spread their genes. How? By playing on the animal's desires, conscious or otherwise. The flowers and spuds that manage to do this most effectively are the ones that get to be fruitful and multiply.

I'd love to hear everyone's thought on this and any of the things in Food For Thought; or just say whatever comes to mind related to the book.

Perhaps I should make things simpler and ask: what effect has the apple had on you? What uses do you make of it, if any?

I eat at least one apple a day, and sometimes two. I love the Golden Delicious and the Gala; but will try kinds I've not eaten before when I see them in the store: I had one recently, of which I remember only part of the name -Rose something-and it smelled like a rose and tasted like what I imagine a rose to taste like. Eating this apple was a very sensual experience.

Late each summer our neighbours come bearing bags full of crabapples to our door, which we turn into applesauce. It is put in freezer bags and frozen for use during the winter as applesauce and in baking.

Those are some of my apple thoughts. I'd love to hear yours!

I'll have a chance over the weekend Nellie to get into the book - I really want to read it - thanks for being so patient.

Nellie....I am trying to get into the book too but have just been kind of overwhelmed with other things.....by the way Fugi is another good eating apple..crisp and sweet.....I also like Gala's.......

Oh yes, I picked Gala when I visited my daughter and we picked in orchards in NC - took a suitcase of apples home that were mostly Gala and Fugi with a few Courtlands for pie.

BARBARA: I have never been to an apple orchard. Did you climb a ladder to get your apples or were they on branches you could reach? I like Delicious apples. Recently I have eaten Galas also. When I core an apple, I put the seeds & skin in my compost pile. I don't think that makes new apple tress however.

NELLIE: Is it OK with you if I post even though I don't plan to get the book?

Marjorie our ladder are two little boys now ages 8 and 11. Haven't gone this year yet but it has been my annual trip in October/November for the last 3 years. Most of the apples we can reach because the apple trees are pruned, as most fruit trees, to keep the horizontal branches and cut out most of the vertical branches so that the sun can reach the fruit. The orchard has the trees grouped by type so that there are about 6 rows of each type tree going down and up and then down and down and down the side of a mountain really. He has little red wagons that we pull back up with our baskets of apples and it is quite a hike and pull back to the top.

One of the dirt roads flattens out for a bit and goes past a pond next to which is a huge bamboo break. It is so dark and dense in that break that it is a suprise to see there is small bridge over an arm of the lake hidden from view of the road. Back up where the huge shed is located he has picnic tables so that folks come to spend the day and bring a lunch - inside the shed there are sack and sack of apples already picked and all around the side of this huge barn/shed are shelves of all kinds of jams, chutney, honey, salad dressing made locally from the produce that grows in the area. In the back area of the shed are the conveyer belts, crates and heavy duty spraying hoses where he packs the apples for wholesale.

We now have several apple orchards doing very well over in Medina Texas area which is near the Lost Maple area that is quite hilly, almost mountainous. Haven't visited the orchards there yet but they now have a big apple festival in Medina. Very different apples since this is so far south and although an unexpected and different terrain in that pocket of Texas it still does not have the freeze days required by our more well known apples.

When I was a child I remember during the war my father knew a farm family that because there was no help had to let the apple harvest go and we were welcome to pick as many as we wanted. Well he borrowed a car and my mother and a neighbor lady my sister and I all picked apples. We had no boxes and just filled the back seat all the way up to the windows so they wouldn't spill over into the front seat with apples. Then on the way home all three adults squeezed in front - my mother was quite heavy and my father was a big burly man so this was really a squeeze - my sister sat on my mother's lap spilling over onto Mrs. Thy's lap and I sat perched on top of all these apples.

For a week afterwards both ladies were back and forth between the hedge that sperated the back yards as they shared the apples and their various cooking secrets - there was apple sauce, and pie and jelly from skins and various German cakes with apples, and apple butter and apple chutney - and then my father brought home some big purple fall grapes and they were mixed with the apples to make a jam and a sauce. It was like a factory with jars being boiled and tops and rubbers sterilized, steam everywhere. What is even more amazing I recently saw a stove just like the one Mama used with the oven next to it - I was shocked at how small this thing was and yet all the preserves that came from just such a stove - amazing.

Barbara, that story of your family all squeezing into the car full of apples is hilarious! I can just picture them, and the way they all traded stuff behind their hedges was very endearing. One wouldn't think that such a banal subject could bring out so many recollections, would one?

Nellie, I have ordered the book, but will just keep nattering on in here until I catch up with the reading. At least the schedule is workable. this looks like a different type of book I can't wait until I take on a potato in argument!

Lorrie

Hi Nellie: I've finished the first section of , "Botany of Desire": the introduction, and, The Apple. It 's definitely an unusual book, written in a unique style. I especially like the way Michael Pollan disputes the, "Disneyfied", version of Johnny Appleseed., and tells the real story! Also, I learned much about apples that I wasn't aware of. I had never thought about the origin of the apple, and how they have evolved through the years, etc. Especially interesting was the importance of cider, to the early settlers!

As for my personal experience with apples - who could ever top that wonderful story by Barbara! That one is a real classic. My favorite apple to eat, is the Gravenstein. Not sure, but I think they're only grown here in Northern California, in and around the town of, Sebastapol. My brother lives close, and when we visit him, we always drive down the, Gravenstein Highway, so we can admire the acres and acres of orchards. Also many fruit stands at the side of the road. Grav's have a very short season, so you have to be there at just the right time.

I'm looking forward to seeing what others think of the book? I'm really enjoying it, and ready to move on to, The Tulip.

What a delight to see everyone!

Barbara, what a wonderful description of the orchard where you go to pick apples; it makes me wish I could pay a visit there. And the memories, specially the car filled with apples -fabulous!

tigerliley, I've eaten the Fugi -very nice apple.

Marjorie, feel free to post as there is usually enough general stuff being talked about, specially with a book like this.

Lorrie, welcome. You'll enjoy the book, I'm sure

Marilyne, I found Pollan's style to be very conversational and had the sense that I was there with him while he was telling about the apple and Johnny Appleseed.

And speaking of Johnny Appleseed: he sure was a Character! As we probably all know his real name was John Chapman and here is a bit from page 7 of the book on him:

...A man with no fixed address his entire adult life, Chapman preferred to spend his nights out of doors; one winter he set up house in a hollowed-out sycamore stump outside Defiance, Ohio, where he operated a pair of nurseries. A vegetarian living on the frontier, he deemed it a cruelty to ride a horse or chop down a tree; he once punished his own foot for squashing a worm by throwing away its shoe. He liked best the company of Indians and children -and rumors trailed him to the effect that he'd once been engaged to marry a ten-year-old girl, who'd broken his heart.

I've heard of Gravenstein apples but I don't think I have ever had one.

More thoughts tomorrow...thanks all for stopping by and posting!

I am so glad this discussion has taken off.

I am happy to see this discussion has finally got off the ground. Sometimes the slow starters end up rather well as my recent "Mutiny on the Bounty" discussion did.

This certainly appears an interesting theme and the author seems to have handled the subject very well. I am fascinated by the Apple account. There is nothing better than apples from the roadside stands in northern New Mexico in late August. They are of very ancient origin and were well know to the Ancient Greeks who sometimes offered Golden Apples as the prize for sports and other contests.

Click Here for Judgment of Paris. This story describes a beauty competition featuring three goddess contestants, Juno, Venus and Minerva, each of whom resorted to the bribery of the judge, Paris, to assure her selection as winner. Juno offered Paris riches, Minerva promised to make him the bravest and most successful warrior in all Greece, but Venus offered him the most beautiful mortal woman in the world. Of course Paris choose Venus as the winner of the contest awarding her the golden apple prize seen in his hand in the Benvenuto painting. As a result with Venus’s help Paris seduced Helen setting off the long and bloody Trojan War and the destruction of the ancient city-state.

Do you suppose this story is what the Author had in mind when he titled his book "The Botony of Desire?"

Interesting - I didn't know that an apple tree grown from seed would only produce sour and un-eatable apples - now I did know Johnny Appleseed was setting out nurseries ahead of the migration west but I didn't realize those trees would be better suited for the making of cider and I guess with no refrigeration the cider would be hard cider. It does make sense though, since settlers would not know if any still water they come across would be safe to drink, the cider would be a welcomed thirst quencher.

As I understand it that is the main reason for so much beer etc. in the daily diet of Europeans where there wasn't and still isn't much safe water. At that time in history it would have been Europeans or the children and grandchildren of earlier European settlers crossing to new lands and they would have brought with them their dietary habits.

I remember we were reading something here on seniornet and I learned that bread was originally made to carry the grain ingredients needed to make beer. That grain had a short shelf life where as bread had a long shelf life. This was in Mesopotamia in about 5000 BC

With all the drinking of alcohol by early man it is a wonder anything got done. And now that we know how much alcohol plays in family abuse and battered women you have to wonder which came first the devaluing of women or alcohol induced bashing - in fact it is easier to see why women could have been just as glad when the men went off to war after the first bloom of love was gone - golly you could make a whole satire about how women made war into a glorious celebration of sending them off in ceremony and greeting them in triumph which made it appear that man-in-war was a thing of honor where as in reality it was a time of peaceful child-rearing, garment making and gardening for women while the men were gone.

It seems to me the location of the first apples is just a bit north of Mesopotamia - this seems to be the cradle of much of our history, religion, government and foods.

Oh yes, when Pollan speaks of selection based on taste I think he is missing a big one that really affected the apple industry in the twentieth century - shipping -

Whole lines of fruits and vegtables are no longer readily found because they did not ship well and could only be consummed locally. And so the type apple and even the potato which we have not yet read about, has been more affected by what ships well. And another - we are not cooking from scratch near as much as even 30 years ago - and so many of the cooking apples are no longer piled high in the major grocery markets - they may be shipped in large numbers to Maria Callahans or whoever is known now for their frozen apple pies but I see few Greenings in the super market.

I also think land use is affecting the apple types we are eating - some apples types are from places like New Zealand and Austraila that we never heard of when I was a child - Some of these new types grow with less spoilage and pack better than some of the older 'American' type apples. I think they got a foothold because there are fewer and fewer orchards in the States as our population has been increasing so greatly that even if all the orchards of the 1930s were alive and well there would not be enough apples nor the easist preserving or shipping apple to feed this nation.

Having driven in Northern Mexico on this side of the mountains, before the huge Chihuahua desert, the foothills and plains are covered with vast orchards as far as the eye can see. This is where most of our apples are now shipped from - and therefore, land use and shipping and the change in food preperations away from the home, I think are major factors in determaining the type of apple available rather than just our taste determaining which apple is more tasty. In this respect we are seperating ourselves from the Bee.

I've been reading an excerpt from the book, and find many new facts. For instance, I always thought the apple was a native, even Ralph Waldo Emerson called it "the American fruit." Does anyone have any idea from what country apples first came here? I wonder.

Lorrie

Hi Ginger!

Harold, I'm not sure that the kind of desire depicted in the story of The Judgement of Paris is what the author had in mind when he named the book The Botany of Desire; but he does mention the desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control. In a way those are all present in the Paris story, when I think of it.

Barbara, I never thought of cider, or any other alcoholic drink, as being a replacement for water that was unsafe to drink. But it makes sense.

Your idea of women sending men off to war so they can have some peace reminded me of one of my favourite books by a favourite author: The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper. The story takes place in the far future after the world is recovering from a devastating nuclear war, and men and women live apart and men do nothing but train for war and go off to war, while the women carry on with more peaceful pursuits.

This discussion on the apple would fit right in with Our Oriental Heritage with the apple originating in the area known as the cradle of civilization; and the fact that the Chinese invented grafting way back in the second millennium B.C.

Yes, only varieties of fruits and vegetables that can stand the rigors of long distance shipping seem to be selected for nowadays.

Some more interesting tidbits from the book:

An orchard is a domesticated version of a forest -page 16
There were no honey bees in North America until after the English arrived -page 17

Finally:

When you see the word 'sweet' or 'sweetness' do you automatically think of the word 'apple'?

Edited to add:

Hi Lorrie, you were posting at the same time as me. It says in the book that the wild apple grows in the mountains of Kazakhstan, and I would assume that is the place it originated and spread out from.

"John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed, owned many tracts of land throughout Ohio and Indiana. He used this land to plant apple seeds, transplant seedlings and set out orchards. He sold and gave trees to the pioneer settlers."...........................

How different the picture I had always had in my mind! I had pictured Johnny Appleseed as an itinerant rambler, who roamed through the countryside scattering apple seeds randomly here and there, and from which great orchards grew. But apparently Johnny Appleseed, in truth, was an experienced nurseryman who was determined to carefully plan and plant apple orchards throughout the Midwest. To tell you the truth, I sort of like the more romantic notion.

Lorrie

I would love to learn more about apples in Normandy - that part of France is known for its apples (calvados) - I wonder when the apple was domesticated in Normandy and if the apple in America came from France or the other way around and the French apple came from America. Seems to me though I have seen bottles of calvados with labels showing the chateau from which the liquar came originated in the 1500s.

Lorrie, it also surprised me to read that when John Chapman aka Johnny Appleseed died he was a wealthy man who owned among other things 1,200 acres of prime land. A far cry from the poor itinerant scatterer of apple seeds we both imagined him to be.

Barbara, according to what I read in the book, the Silk Road passed through the area where the apple originated and it is supposed that the larger specimins of the wild apples would have been carried both west into the orient and east into Europe. The Romans grew 23 different varieties of apples and took some of those varieties over to England. I would imagine that the Romans would have taken their domesticated apples in Gaul (France) as well.

What an interesting fruit the apple is!

I found Botany of Desire in my library and have been reading the first chapter. I was fascinated with the author's description of his library reading and comparison of how John Chapman planted apple seeds and Dionysus introduced wine to the world.

...Teaching men how to ferment the juice of the grape, Dionysus had brought civilization the gift of wine. This was more or less the same gift Johnny Appleseed was bringing to the frontier: because American grapes weren't sweet enough to be fermented successfully, the apple served as the American grape, cider the American wine. ... "Johnny Appleseed," who, I became convinced is Dionysus's American Son.

I found this web page for Dionysus. I didn't read all of what is on this page. I was looking for a description of how he "gave civilization the gift of wine."

I had heard the name Johnny Appleseed before but don't remember the "story" that went along with the name.

Hello Marjorie, Odd isn't it that the dissemination of alcohol -one in the form of wine from grapes and hard cider from apples in the other-goes together with the spread of civilization?

We are now going on to the sections on the Tulip, and Marijuana -although I'm sure we could do a fair bit more discussion on the apple and Johnny Appleseed; and any comments on those subjects are certainly still welcome.

I was born in the land of the tulips, the Netherlands, but I can't say that I paid much attention to them as a child living there, and don't even remember seeing them around that much. My mother was born in the area where they grow all the tulip bulbs and remembers the brightly coloured fields with fondness. I think that her ideal garden recreates those tulip fields in a way.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on tulips and on flowers in general

As I read, I had a hard time trying to figure out where the author was going with this book. There is a lot of interesting information put out without much connection, in my mind. As I kept reading, my reaction was 'well that's nice but so what'. Then I reached the section on marijuana and it hit me.

At this point I must digress and explain that I live in Chattanooga, TN. Since 9/11/01 some of our good politicians decided that what we needed to solve all of our problems was to have the ten commandments posted in several places in the local public buildings. They wanted to do this all along but 9/11 seemed to provide a chance to do so. As everyone with any sense knew would happen, a dozen or so citizens including several clergymen asked the ACLU to handle the case in the local Federal Court. Several months and $50,000 later the ten commandments were removed from the public buildings. As an aside the county is still trying to get donations so the taxpayers don't have to pay for the lawyers' fees.

Several counties away in Tennessee, one of the other local county governments tried to do the same thing, with the difference that they mounted the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and I think one other document along with the ten commandments. The Federal judge said that the ten commandments had to come down, the other documents could stay. They all came down.

All of which brings me back to 'Botany of Desire'. The book is about marijuana. The apple, orchid, and potato are the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta. The author could not have written the whole book about marijuana and have it accepted by the general public as a scholarly treatise on botany. This hit me when the author predicted that one of the marijuana researchers would win the Nobel Prize for his discoveries.

This may be the ravings of a cycical old man who has been exposed to people trying to add legitimacy to something that thay know would not stand on its own, by hiding it in the middle of something else that just might work.

John Z

Oh I wonder if we are reading too much into all this - I am remembering before all the who-ha about marijuana it was grown in profusion in South Texas because it was a source for making good rope, and except for those Mexican people with a greater amount of Indian background who used it in their ceremonies, no one thought to eat or smoke it. I have not read the chapter but I bet it claims many affects to civilization in addition to rope or as a hallucinogenic. Rope alone would make it extremely valuable when you consider all shipping was dependent on rope for centuries as well as the hoisting of anything with block and tackle.

There was also a great amount of research and papers written about the medical properties of the plant and research into the other uses for marijuana here at the University of Texas that all came to a stand still in the late 60s, early 70s when the government decided marijuana was an evil dependency.

I guess Texas just didn't have the clout that Kentucky has - hehehe maybe Texas is still too much of a maverick and we do not have full admission yet having been a nation of its own - but anyhow whisky is still OK but not marijuana - and no I have never smoked or eaten it - I only know it does less damage to the body and the brain than a glass of whisky.

Another fear change was along Lamar Blvd. is Shoal Creek that runs side by side for several miles - the land between the busy street and the Creek used to be covered in Red Poppies that bloomed after the bluebonnets. This road with the poppies runs within 4 blocks of the University of Texas campus. You guessed it - all the poppies were removed in the mid seventies. Now I do agree opium is a dangerous drug but at the time it was not in the thinking of the student body to raid the poppies, grown for 50 years or more along Lamar Blvd. for its opium.

I guess I have a hard time imagining an author choosing what to include in his book just to please or not the government. Or that by including marijuana he may assure himself more sales since so many baby boomers, now the majority of readers, smoked the plant and are still enticed to read something that reminds them of their youth.

I really think that Pollan chose plants that had an affect on the spread of civilization. I remember when I studied design and needlework - the trick was to follow the arid lands where wool was harvested from the only animal that flourishes in scabby land and felt was created long before woven fabric. And for design to follow the advance of trim since all fabric design is based on the horizontal division of a bar.

Than later the huge affect windows had on fabric making and decorating it - and how the Arab culture also had the major affect on fabric design. All this seemed by-the-way to drawing designs by counting or matching the weft and woof of the many threads of silk, linen, cotton and wool that is used to make fabric, decorate it and finally, the natural dyes that didn't enter the picture in perfusion till the middle ages, much less printing designs on fabric, a modern technique, developed only after Perkins created vat or chemical dyes in 1856.

The first enviornmental ordinances were created during the early middle ages since the making of the red dye was such a smelly process anyone making red dye in Britian had to move at least five Km out of town.

I think Pollan was on to choosing those plants that had the most affect on civilization and as civilization affected the growth of that plant it continued to look on the plant to satisfy societies desires based on needs and wants and likes.

Barbara says:

"I guess I have a hard time imagining an author choosing what to include in his book just to please or not the government" and later, "I think Pollan was on to choosing those plants that had the most affect on civilization and as civilization affected the growth of that plant it continued to look on the plant to satisfy societies desires based on needs and wants and likes."

I can't help but agree there, our cynical friend. could we be reading more into this than there is?

Lorrie

JohnZ, interesting thought on the Marijuana chapter -the only chapter that didn't really grab me as the others did.

As for one chapter not tying in with the others, it seems to me that each chapter is a stand-alone, and each one looks at a human desire and a specific plant which satisfies that desire.

I find it interesting that the desire for beauty is followed by the desire for intoxication, for, to me, beauty itself can be intoxicating. So we have something like: tulip -beauty -intoxication -marijuana.

I have noticed that the author has chosen plants that can be easily grown by anyone with a plot of ground for a garden.

Here in Canada a Senate committee has 'suggested' that marijuana be made legal. I'm in two minds about this. Making it legal would give the government another source of tax money, and would make life easier for those who use it for medicinal purposes. But my against is that just like cigarettes it would be the very young who would end up using it most, to their detriment.

Ha! Here I am babbling on about the very stuff that does not interest me!

Hi Barbara! Hi Lorrie!

Any thoughts on the tulip craze in the Netherlands?

When I read about the tulip mania in Holland in 1635, simply because they began trading in promissory notes rather than following the rythms of the seasons as they had done, I couldn't help but think of our own stock markets here, with a similar penchant for greed.

I must say I laughed at the author's explanation, on page 103 (paperback):

"The bubble logic driving tulipomania has since acqired a name: "the greater fool theory."

"Although by any conventional measure it is folly to pay thousands for a tulip bulb(or for that matter an Internet stock) as long as there is an even greater fool out there willing to pay even more, doing so is the most logical thing in the world."

This is very funny, and typical of the tongue-in-cheek, wry humor of this author all along.

Lorrie

I was fascinated with the discussion of Ophryus orchids in the chapter on the Tulip. This section was particularly interesting:

Ophryus orchids look uncannily like insects, of all things -- like bees or flies, depending on the orchid species in question. The Victorians believed this mimicry was intended to scare away insects so the flower could, chastely, pollinate itself. What the Victorians failed to consider was that the Ophryus might resemble an insect precisely in order to attract insects to it. . . . Botanists call the resultant behavior on the part of the male insect "pseudocopulation"; they call the flower that inspires this behavior the "prostitute orchid."

I remember drawing the tulip when I was in grade school. It was an easy flower to draw. I don't remember particularly liking the tulip, however. I think I prefer flowers that are softer looking and have a fragrance. That, of course, is just what I happen to like and would choose for my garden.

Marjorie:

Yes, even the author seems to think that kids love the tulip. It's easy to draw,and the spectrum of colors in which they come never fails "to toe the Crayola line"

Yes, these tulips were easy to grow and to grasp, but also easy to grow out of, and as they grew older, children seemed to find pleasures in other variants.

Lorrie

I hate to think of modern flowers simply as "mass-produced eye candy." Surelly there is more spontaneity than that. Whatever happedned to the idea of "Mother Nature" whom it's not nice to fool?

Lorrie

I have been very curious about why there was such a fuss over tulips in Holland and finally looked up the Semper Augustus. The tulips pictured in these links don't look anything like the "eye candy" that tulips have become. I can understand the fascination with these.

drawings of a wide variety of early tulips

History of tulips and photos of unusal tulips in a vase

Marjorie, I enjoyed looking at the old tulips shown at the one link. I think it is too bad that tulips like that are no longer grown as they have a lot more 'character' than the ones you see now. I would love to have the Viceroy, which looks almost black and white, in my garden.

I'm Dutch, but tulips are not my favourite flowers; I like roses and peonies and lilies, specially lillies, when it comes to my choices for beautiful flowers.

Lorrie, I think that Mother Nature has very little to do with the plants that are called 'mass-produced eye candy'.

Marjorie, thanks so much for the links to some really interesting-looking tulips! Now those flowers had real "character," don't you think?

Lorrie

I just finished the chapter on Marijuana. I was surprised because it did seem different from the other chapters and I don't know how much was my personal slant on the topic and how much is real. This chapter seems to have a lot more personal anecdotes and less history and botany. Has anyone else finished that chapter yet? Do you agree/disagree with me?

Am I getting too far ahead of everyone else?

Marjorie, you are not getting too much ahead since in this section we can discuss both the tulip and marijuana. There is a fair amount of personal anecdotes in every chapter, but there do seem to be more of them in the marijuana chapter. Perhaps there is less information given, botany wise, on the plant because less is known -which I can't believe- or because he does not want to give readers ideas which will cause them to try growing it?

I have a few more quotes from the Tulip that caught my eye, which I would like to share:

The first is from page 86 (hardcover)

When the tulip first arrived in Europe, people set about fashioning some utilitarian purpose of it. The Germans boiled and sugared the bulbs and, unconvincingly, declared them a delicacy; the English tried serving them up with oil and vinegar. Pharmacists proposed the tulip as a remedy for flatulence. None of these things caught on, however.

I wonder that they were not afraid of poisoning themselves by eating the bulbs? I don't even try eating flowers or other parts of plants that are known to be edible; and I would certainly never try eating any plant that was a total unknown as far as edibility goes.

This next piece is from page 94 (hardcover)

Still, it's important to remember that what ended in Holland in madness had begun with the desire for beauty in a place where, it seemed to many, beauty was in comparatively short supply. This was also a country, remember, where everyone, regardless of social class, dressed remarkably alike, in the satorial equivalent of a monotone. Color in this gray Calvinist land must have struck the eye with unimaginable force- the color of tulips was like no clor anyone had ever laid eyes on before: saturated, brilliant, more intense than that of any other flower.

He makes Holland seem like it was a place, in those days, which was totally without any colour; a black and white place. But look at any painting from the era and you do see colour; not bright colour, but colour nevertheless. (I'll see if I can find some links to paintings of the time, if I can, for tomorrow)

Lastly, a nice description of the tulip from page 97 (hardcover)

The tulip, by contrast, is all Apollonian clarity and order. It's a linear, left-brained sort of flower, in no way occult, explicit and logical in its formal rules and arrangements (six petals corresponding to six stamens), and conveying all this rationality the only way conceivable: through the eye. The clean, steely stem holds the solitary flower up in the air for our admiration, positing its lucid form over and above the uncertain, shifting earth. The tulip's blooms float above nature's turmoil; even when they expire they do so gracefully. Instead of turning to mush, like a spent rose, or to used kleenex, like peony petals, the six petals on a tulip cleanly, dryly, and, often simultaneously, shatter.

NELLIE: I noticed each of the sections you quoted when I was reading about the tulip. It seemed like there were a lot of things to learn about that were new to me. I am would like to see a link of a picture of the times if you find one. It never occurred to me that different countries tried to "serve" the bulbs in a variety of ways. I wouldn't eat an unknown plant either.

Marjorie, I haven't been able to find any pictures from around the time of the tulip madness -Vermeer has quite a bit of colour in his paintings but he comes about thirty years later.

Some quotes from the marijuana chapter: From page 120 (hardcover)

I should probably explain my interest in these plants. At least in the beginning, this had less to do with my interest in using drugs, which was never more than mild, than with an impulse I think most gardeners share. In fact, by the time I planted a few cannabis seeds, in the early 1980s, I no longer smoked at all -pot, fairly reliably, rendered me paranoid and stupid. But I had just taken up gardening and was avid to try anything -the magic of a Bourbon rose or a beefsteak tomato seemed very much of a piece with the magic of a psychoactive plant. (I still feel this way.) So when my sister's boyfriend asked if I might want to plant a few seeds he'd picked out of "some really amazing Maui," I decided to give it a try -as much as anything, just to see if I could grow it.

From page 125: rather interesting information, I think.

Jail time would not be my only worry were I so foolish as to reprise my experiment. If the New Milford police chief happened to find marijuana growing in my garden today, he would have the power to seize my house and land, regardless of whether I was ultimately convicted of a crime. That's because, according to the somewhat magical reasoning of the federal asset-forfeiture laws, my garden can be found guilty of violating the drug laws even if I am not.

Why do we humans, for the most part, enjoy the action upon our brains by a psychoactive drug?

NELLIE: I don't have an answer to your question about psychoactive drugs because I am one of those who does not like what happens. Maybe the reason I do not like the effect of psychoactive drugs is that I want to maintain control. Could the reverse be the reason some people like them?

I think Marjorie is right about not keeping control of our minds when we experiment with "psycho" drugs. I remember listening to some of my contemporaries rave about the wonderful "trips" they took while on LSD, but the thought of that always frightened me because I had also heard of people taking "bad" trips, also. I could never understand why people would want to interfere with their own brain's processes.

I was interested in the matter-of-fact way that Michael Pollan introduced the subject of marijuana. He was very candid about his personal experience, and amusing, I might add, on page 124-125. (Paperback)

Lorrie

Did your author in the book ever have occasion to mention chocolate and the plant it comes from? This is another interesting "new World" plant. The author may have had occasion to mention it in the marijuana discussion as I have read the ingestion of chocolate reacts on the same humane brain cells as marijuana.

HAROLD: I think I would have remembered if chocolate was mentioned in the book. I didn't find it there. I believe my taste buds would have been watering if I had been reading about the chocolate plant. Hmm.

P.S. I found a link (on a commercial site) to a history of chocolate. If you check out the entries for 1569, 1579, and 1587 you might get a chuckle as I did.

Marjorie, Lorrie, I feel the same as you when it comes to using substances that play with your brain/mind; I like to keep control, and can't understand that people get pleasure out of losing control of their thought processes and so on.

Marjorie, do you have the URL for the chocolate site? Could you send it to me?

Harold, chocolate is not mentioned in this book -it deserves a whole book of its own, I would say; and there are probably a few books on chocolate around. It is interesting that chocolate has the same effect on braincells as marijuana. Is that why chocolate is liked so much?

We are going on to the potato, but feel free as always to comment on anything that has gone before. Tomorrow I will be by with some new quotes and a few questions.

I had the link for the history of chocolate that I mentioned in my previous post. I don't know why I didn't put it in my post. I talked about it as if it was possible to click somewhere and look up what I was mentioning. I had gotten the link from Google and just tried again and couldn't find the same one. Sorry everyone.

What I was referring to in my comments before is that when the explorers (Columbus' time) found the cocoa bean no one thought it was worth anything. In one case somebody captured a ship filled with beans and just sunk the ship as if the beans were worthless.

I found some more links that I will email you NELLIE.

Marjorie: please give a link or clue as to the chocolate site with the time line that gives significant happenings in 1569,1579 and 1587. I did a Google search on the string, “ History of Chocolate.” There were many hits. Click Here for Library Thinkquest- History of Chocolate. It gives considerable details but says nothing of events in the years you mentioned.

And another site: Click Here for the Kara Chocolate Site

And Nellie the way I remember the article Chocolate only affected the same brain cells as marihuana. I don’t think this is the same as saying they affected them in the same way. Also I don’t remember the source of the article but it did stick in my memory, as I do love chocolate.

Please excuse this intrusion, but I have been lurking and following the excellent posts on the book on an interesting subject that possible deserves broader treatment than the limited scope of this particular book

I tried pretty hard to find the chocolate link I had before. I thought I put "chocolate plant" in Google earlier. I tried that again and got found the Kara link you have there. The Library Thinkquest site as some of the same information as the site I originally found.

I also searched on "plant chocolate" and "history of chocolate" and "chocolate in the middle ages" and none of those provided the site I was looking for. I didn't realize that searching in the same search engine again I wouldn't find what I had the first time.

I can give you a description of what the layout of the page was but that won't help you find the site. I had hoped it would be in my drop down box but it wasn't there and I hadn't put it in my Favorites.

Good Heavens, Harold, Nellie, and Marjorie!! Are you telling me that if I overeat my allotment of Hershey bars that I will become drunk and start staggering down the halls here, shocking all my blue-haired lady neighbors? No wonder i have always loved chocolate so much, and there's nothing like a hot coup of chocolate on a frigid morning, right?

I suppose you have already tried these links?

Padovani's Chocolates

Chocolate Corner

Lorrie

LORRIE: I couldn't get your first link to work. The second one has a lot of good information but all of it positive about chocolate.

I found another link that is quite good Chocolate through the Ages. Check out the entry "1662 Solomon of Chocolate." That was one of the things that was on the page I mentioned early this morning.

couldn't get it to work either, Marjorie.Hahaha

Try this one. History of Cocoa

Lorrie

And now we are going to talk about the lowly potato? Well, that's right up my alley, because I'm a direct descendant of those people who fled Ireland as the result of the horrible potato famine they suffered back then.

Harold, you are a history buff. In your estimation, how much of the Irish potato famine was a natural progression of events, and how much was due to contrived, like politics, and so forth? Of course I have always been told the embittered version by tales passed down from my grandparents who hated the British. I do know we were always great potato eaters in our family, and I still love them.

Lorrie

Here is ia rather complete web history of the Irish potato famine and its effect on the history of Ireland, England and yes, even the United states. Click Here for Interpreting The Irish Famine, 1846-1850. This site seems offer far more than I can on the subject.

Based on my limited background relative to the subject it would appear to have been the results of the potato blight that completely devastated the one crop agriculture system of the time. This brought on very widespread starvation affecting the majority of the people. The resulting poverty left the many peasant farmers unable to pay their rents to English (Protestant) land owners. This was of course the result of the completely free unregulated capitalism of the time. There were many deaths and mass suffering followed by mass migration to the U.S., Canada and other English speaking areas. The resulting great population decline, individual suffering, and upheaval doubtlessly sparked the development of the political struggle and racial hatred beginning later in the 19th century and continuing even to the present day. It has only been in the last decades that the economy in the Republic of Ireland has been restored to the levels of other European countries.

Lorrie, Marjorie, Harold, and all, we go from the intoxication of marijuana, and the joy of chocolate to the lowly potato, which, perhaps is not so lowly any more. Thanks to companies like Monsanto, the humble potato is becoming more like a piece of computer software that a vegetable -see quote above from the book.

Harold I have to do some more reading at that link to the Irish potato famine. But it does show one thing: that it is not good to rely on a single food source, no matter how nutritious it may be.

NELLIE: I was disturbed when I read the section that said that the gene modified potato belongs to Monsanto and can not be replanted. I have been concerned all along when there has been discussion about gene research that a particular gene could be pattened and belong to a particular corporation/research group. How can that be for the "good" of society as a whole? I think it only works to line the pockets of the heads of corporations.

Don't mess with Mother nature, I agree as most will not know how good it was when we were growin up. Yummmmmie.

Marjorie, I agree with you there. I wonder how they can take two genes that come directly from nature, and thus cannot be patented or copyrighted, put those genes together in one organism, and suddenly they can be patented? This has puzzled me. Or is it the resulting organism -like the modified potato- that is patented, but what is inside is not?

Pollan is an adventurous gardener, he likes to try everything at least once to see how it grows for him.

Hello Ginger! I think we have been messing with Mother Nature for a long time, but it used to be on her terms; and now it has switched over to our terms, and that is not so good - except maybe for the potato farmers who grow potatoes for the fast food industry.

We are coming to the end of our discussion. Are there any final thoughts on what we have read?

NELLIE: I found the book fascinating. I had to return it to the library yesterday so I don't have it in front of me. I am glad you chose this book to discuss and I read it with you all.

Marjorie, I found this to be a very interesting book that is fun to read.

I want to thank everyone for joining me in this discussion: thank you!