This Adventurer Risked His Life to Discover Good Food

We take it for granted that our supermarkets are stocked with exotic fruit and vegetables like quinoa, nectarines, and avocados. But behind many of these now-commonplace items is a story of global exploration, skullduggery, and danger. At the center of it all is an American botanist most of us have never heard of named David Fairchild.

Speaking from National Geographic headquarters in Washington D.C., Daniel Stone, author of The Food Explorer, describes how the flowering Japanese cherry trees on the National Mall, as well as most of the beer we drink, owe their existence to Fairchild; how Fairchild was arrested in Corsica for trying to smuggle out lemons; and how a battle over importing seeds and plants was fought out in the pages of National Geographic a century ago. morehttps://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/thank-one-adventurer-for-beer–lemons–japanese-cherry-trees/