The Botany of Desire

Michael Pollan

Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

Loved it!

This book is an examination of 4 plants, the apple, tulip, cannabis and potatoe, and how they've co-evolved with us to fulfill our 4 desires of sweetness, beauty, intoxication and sustenance.

Apple

Fascinating! I had no idea how foundational the apple was to early American life. Pollan's exploration of Johnny Appleseed was eye opening. Coming from a evangelical upbringing I knew the more Christianized version of this figure.

Tulip

Skipped this chapter. It didn't hook the way others did. I don't think I related to the desire of beauty expressed within the tulip. I find it a "meh" flower. Growing up in San Diego I can't recall seeing tulips that often but in Portland they are everywhere!

Cannabis

A great examination of how this plant is viewed across cultures and time. Interesting theories on the intoxication effects of cannabis and why the "high" is experienced the way it is.

Potatoes

Wow! There was so much more to learn about potatoes than I could have imagined. Originally from the Andes. Initially frowned upon by European society but embraced by the Irish. It offered an alternative to wheat with a cheaper and simpler process from planting to plate. Broke Ireland's reliance on England for food supply. Potatoes with a bit of cows milk is nutritionally complete.

In this chapter Pollan describes his experience growing "NewLeaf" potatoes from Monsanto. …Fuck Monsanto… which has Bt, a pesticide, spliced into it's genes. There are two methods for this genetic modification.

Infecting it with agrobacterium
A "gene gun". Literally a gun! They dip metal shards in genes which are packed into a .22 shell and fired at a stem or leaf.

Laughed out loud at this fact.