Precious Cargo: How Foods From the Americas Changed The World

IACP Award winner for Culinary History: This fascinating true story is “a treasure” (Weekly Alibi).

Precious Cargo tells the tale of how foods from the western hemisphere conquered the globe and saved it from mass starvation. Focusing heavily on American foods, specifically the lowly crops that became commodities—plus one gobbling protein source, the turkey—Dave DeWitt describes how these foreign and often suspect temptations were transported around the world, transforming cuisines and the very fabric of life on the planet.

Organized thematically by foodstuff, Precious Cargo delves into the botany, zoology, and anthropology connected to New World foods—often uncovering surprising individuals who were responsible for their spread and influence, including traders; brutish conquerors; a Scottish millionaire obsessed with a single fruit; and a British lord and colonial governor with a passion for peppers, to name a few.