The Botany Of Desire by Michael Pollan

From The Week of May 30, 2010

It is inarguable that the foodie movement is a consequence of wealth. People striving merely to survive don't have the time necessary to indulge themselves in figuring out what their food is composed of, much less where it comes from. And yet, while acknowledging that Mr. Pollan's journey in The Botany of Desire is tinged with both decadence and pompousness, its cleverness, its earnestness, and its insightfulness overwhelm its flaws.

Mr. Pollan, a professor of journalism at UC Berkeley, has, here, set himself the task of tracing the histories of four plants: the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato. Cleverly, to aid in the telling of each plant's story, Mr. Pollan has framed each history with a human desire: sweetness, beauty, pleasure and sustenance respectively. And so, as much as Mr. Pollan is investigating botany, he's examining the human relationship with botany which, according to Mr. Pollan, has a lot more of symbiosis about it than we might think. All four plants have their origin stories told alongside their legends, such as when the tulip caused an economic crash, or how the apple came to America. But while all this is interesting enough, it's the impact humanity has had on these crops that startles and captivates. Mr. Pollan exposes how modern science has supercharged the performance of each crop, through the tweaking of its genome, in the case of the potato, or by maximizing its food, in the case of artificial light for the marijuana plant. All these threads combine to weave a tapestry worthy of the praise The Botany of Desire has received, educating and entertaining in equal measure.

Though Mr. Pollan never stoops to preaching, there's an undercurrent of uneasiness which runs through his book. The exploitation of these crops in order to boost performance has lead consumers down a dangerous and unexplored road. Soon, we may only be able to buy potatoes that have been genetically modified, that the natural form of the crop will be a thing of the past. But while this serves the agricultural business quite well -- most of the modifications are efforts to improve yields and repel pests --, the health impact that these changes will have on us is totally unclear. In this way, Mr. Pollan's book is as much a warning, that we are entering uncharted waters, as it is a history in four crops.

A delightful read. Mr. Pollan invests himself in his work, growing each crop, sometimes multiple varieties of each crop, to test and examine their performance. Throughout, the air of simple, innocent, human curiosity is charming, a welcome departure from the high-handedness of some foodie literature. Having the time to pursue the subject as he does is self-indulgent, true, but I believe we are the better for it. The rigor with which Mr. Pollan attacks this subject leaves little doubt in my mind that, insofar as the issues with modern food can be encapsulated, he has done the job. (3/5 Stars)