The Seed Detective is a very well written and accessible history of 14 vegetables and fruits and how they came to be in their current forms in our culinary lives. Released 29th Sept 2022 by Chelsea Green Publishing, it's 320 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

The author is a gifted storyteller and this could easily have been a dry-as-dust recitation with lots of facts and figures. It is emphatically anything but that. The story of food is the story of civilisation and tracing our interactions with the development of different kinds of crops from the first 8 "founder" crops developed and cultivated by our ancestors to our modern specialty brassicas and coloured sprouts.

There are chapter notes with annotations for further reading as well as an abbreviated glossary and index. There are no illustrations in the eARC sent for review, but in my opinion, they would've been superfluous to the text anyhow.

The historical tie-ins are varied, relevant, and educational (including the fact that favism could be the reason Pythagoras (yes, that one) actually died - which was a new one for me).

Four and a half stars. This would be a superlative selection for public or school library acquisition, gift giving, and for gardeners who enjoy natural history. It will make a nice break for long autumn evenings from the knee-high stack of glossy seed magazines dreaming of springtime.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I found this book so enjoyable! Seeds are not a subject I've been interested in the past, but Adam Alexander was able to pull me in and keep me interested through his anecdotes of world travels, at-home projects, and rich histories.

Mostly a horticultural history lesson, partly a travel memoir, and wholly a love letter to seed saving and growing heirloom vegetable varieties. This was an interesting history lesson about vegetables and where they came from, how they have evolved, how they became a part of our diet, etc. 3 stars.

Adam Alexander's The Seed Detective invites the reader to journey along with Adam as he narrates the cultivation history of the heirloom plants in his garden. He shares his journey of finding, buying or being gifted the different seeds alongside his research into their domestication and thoughts on their taste. Alexander seeks to educate and inform the public about the importance of plant diversity through his own journeys.

If you're interested in plants and horticulture then this is a book for you!

Otherwise, the book is arranged by plant type and gets very repetitive in its structure. It is clearly a labor of love, alternating between Alexander's personal experience, which are by far the more readable or enjoyable sections, and the cultivation history that often seems to name every variant name a plant was sold under.

A fairly standard chapter is: Quote about the plant, history of the plant, personal encounter/ anecdote about the plant. The information is at times quite fascinating, particularly when Alexander discusses some of the breeding attempts, but tends to be more focused on a survey history. He also frequently discusses growing the plants in his home, but as far as I recall, does not really discuss the layout or development of his farm.

Have you ever wondered, when you visit the produce section of a grocery store or encountered an unusual dish at a new restaurant, how our ancestors ever worked out how to take the wild things growing around them and turned them into giant pumpkins, lethally hot chillis, or the stunning variety of Brassicas? I certainly have, but not to the extent that Adam Alexandar has. In The Seed Detective, Alexander discusses the wide variety of heirloom and heritage varieties of vegetables he’s collected on his travels around the world and now grows in his garden. By the end of the book, Alexandar will have taken you on a global tour of peas, beans, tomatoes, nearly all the Brassica species and varieties, lettuces, alliums, corn, and chillis—and will probably have you wanting to make a quick trip to the store to stock up.

Bookended with an introduction about one of the first plants Alexander collected the seeds of and a conclusion about the dangers of monoculture agriculture, The Seed Detective is divided into two major parts. The first covers plants of the Old World (Europe, the Middle East, India, North Africa, and Asia). The second goes over plants from the New World (North and South America). The distinction has to do with place of origin but, as Alexander shows us over and over again, a tasty plant will grow legs. The story of chillis is proof enough of this. Plants in the Capsicum genus are native to southern Mexico and Central America. They proved so popular (partly as a replacement for expensive black pepper and partly because a lot of people really like challenging the fortitude of their tastebuds) that folks started growing them everywhere. What would Indian, southeast Asian, Chinese, and Korean food be like without the system-clearing fire of chillis? North American tomatoes, too, are so popular in Italy that it’s almost impossible to imagine Italian food without them.

Alexander is not just a seed collector and gardener; he’s also a student of botany and the etymology of plant names. All of the chapters about the plants Alexander has collected over the years include histories of how the plants came to get their names, botanical and common. To be honest, these were some of my favorite parts of The Seed Detective. I was delighted to learn how many indigenous names are partially preserved in their English common names. For example, the Nahautl name tomatl is where we got “tomato” and the name for squashes can be traced back to a Narragansett word (entirely separate from the etymology of the verb “squash”). Garlic, it turns out, has been with English speakers so long that its name is an Old English word that hasn’t changed much in over a thousand years.

The only place that Alexandar’s book falls flat is when he talks about how any of these plants that he gushes over actually tastes. He has a strangely limited vocabulary when it comes to flavor. Alexander mostly talks about plants as being either tasty or bland. We can get a bit more detail when he compares varieties, although he mostly just declares one variety as tastier than another. Some types of corn are described as nutty or sweet, but that’s about as detailed as it gets. This flaw is very noticeable given that Alexander can vividly describe the appearance of seeds or growing plants. I understand that flavor is a difficult thing to describe as it’s such a subjective sense and Alexander is not a chef. Still, I was annoyed that Alexander would sort plants into the tasty or bland categories after waxing lyrical about verdant foliage, the length of the seed pods, or the vibrant colors of tomatoes and chillis.

In spite of Alexander’s apparent inability to talk about flavor, I think gardeners and self-taught botanists will enjoy The Seed Detective. There’s a lot to learn here about not just the origins of plants and how they came to be cultivated over the centuries but also small bits of advice about growing a global array of plants on a couple of acres in Monmouthshire, England. I might suggest that, if you don’t have access to a garden full of dewy fresh vegetables at hand, you might want to make up a batch of your favorite bean casserole or some ratatouille before you open up The Seed Detective.

I liked the premises of this book, as I am interested both in history and botany, and even started some gardening recently myself. Unfortunately, while clearly passionate about his heirloom seeds, the author gets stuck in too many details and the result is mostly dry and encyclopedic. I think it still will be interesting to people who are looking for very specific information about their plants, but if you’re looking for an engaging popular science book, it may not be the best choice.

Thanks to the publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

The author leads an amazing life, rather like the Indiana Jones of seed preservation. He travels the world, seeking out vegetable varieties that have not been "discovered" in the Western World, and brings them out to be grown in controlled circumstances and preserved for future generations. Alexander frequents farmers markets all over the world, looking for that elusive "granny", who has been growing the variety for decades, maybe even generations. It's an honorable task, otherwise many (maybe all) of these varieties would be eventually lost. It's a good read!

*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's Copy from NetGalley.

Alexander knows a lot about plants, particularly what it takes to collect and continue heirloom varieties from around the world (just reading about his setup I am very jealous). I, on the other hand, can't seem to start plants from seeds for anything. But that's ok, the more people explore this work, the more chance I have of picking up an heirloom plant at a farmer's market or other locales.

Separated into East and West, Alexander explores the heritage of well-known plants, not only narrating his own explorations but also digging into the history and origin of the plants as well. I appreciated that he sometimes went into obscure areas, as there are so many varieties of edible plants out there that people just don't know about due to the homogeneity of what we generally find in stores.

That being said, it could get dry at times, and there were certain sections I found myself skimming. While I largely enjoyed the information, some just seemed to be more detail for the sake of detail. But it was nice to see how tomatoes crossed the world (indeed it seemed like the largest chapter was dedicated to them), how many classifications of peppers there are (no it's not just hot and not-hot), and just where beans really originated. I wouldn't have minded a few recipes thrown in for how he uses some of his crops based on the way he described taste and function.

An interesting book, but definitely one for someone who is really into seeds, gardening, or food history.

Review by M. Reynard 2022

I love heirloom gardening! Anytime I can find any info pertaining to them, I stop to check it out. This book didn't disappoint. Mr. Alexander has done his homework in tracing the origins of several vegetables. Gardeners wilAnd now there are more seeds I have to hnt done to try on my bucket list!

This is a rather interesting book about growing heirloom vegetables and is an enjoyable read. I think what makes this one slightly different from similar books I've read is that it combines the history of vegetables with a memoir of sorts by the author of his love for the various "heirloom" or "heritage" varieties of seed he's run across in his travels around the world. It's this nice blend of history and memoir that makes it enjoyable.

The book is broken into two parts:
- Old World veggies: peas, broad beans, carrots, leeks, asparagus, lettuce, garlic
- New World veggies: tomatoes, regular and runner beans, corn, lima beans, chilis, squash and pumpkins

In each chapter he mentions seeds he acquired in his travels - often from what he calls a "seed granny" - and what he finds so fascinating or tasty or... (etc.) about them. Be forewarned, however, that you may or may not be able to ever find that particular heirloom because he sometimes uses a name he gave the seeds based upon where he got them. So, the usefulness for us as gardeners, who would like to grow more heirlooms is somewhat limited. Unfortunately, the book contains the usual screed against "Big Ag" (the somewhat mysterious big agriculture and chemical companies) found in so many books like this, but while this argument pops up in several places, it's minimal enough. The author also seems to romanticize Neolithic farmers and Native Americans, but... whatever.

As a backyard gardener I would love to grow more heirloom vegetables with the space I have, but older varieties are often subject to diseases and fungi that don't attack newer varieties. Also, they aren't always as prolific as some growers, including this author, make them sound - and I'm not the only one to complain about these issues. (Not only that, but taste is often subjective, and I've been disappointed at the flavor of heirlooms on a number of occasions.) In that regard, this book is limited in its usefulness because it's more memoir and history than growing guide. And I guess that's okay - it's a pleasant read as it is - but I would like to find a book that doesn't just tell us we should be growing more heirloom varieties and saving our own seed, but has some practical advice to get a well-meaning gardener started with heirlooms as well. Still, I made a number of notes from my reading and will be looking for some of the varieties he mentioned. (Thank you to NetGalley and Chelsea Green Publishing for an advance electronic copy.)

For those who are interested in open pollinated seeds and who seek to learn the origins of vegetables. The author tells the history of various cultivars and his search for seeds unknown to him from around the world.


Thank you Chelsea Green Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.

Adam Alexander's THE SEED DETECTIVE is a fascinating and engaging journey through the history of everyday plants. Alexander's careful research and close thinking shine through in this book, making it a treat for anyone who loves to read, eat, or garden.

The author has a legitimate query: “Why don’t people drool over shops with cornucopias of veg in their windows as one sees people drooling over cake or clothes shops?” This book is not just for garden nerds — it’s an interesting treatise about why when you go to a regular, not specialized or ethnic, market you have certain choices. Mr. Alexander understands that a worldwide food system depends on monoculture – growing just one variety of crop at scale, instead of multiple varieties.

The book is a great history of vegetables, especially peas, beans, leeks, carrots (which changed color from red and white to orange), garlic, brassica family plants, and corn.

A traveling journalist by trade, Mr. Alexander started his interest in unique vegetables with one special pepper that he discovered in Donetsk, Ukraine, and now he has 499 varieties of vegetable seeds, grows 70 varieties annually, and is a “seed guardian” for the Heritage Seed Library. He is often interrogating Someone's Granny (SG) in world markets about the origin of their heirloom wares.

I found the stories fascinating and I learned how the way the world produces its food changed fundamentally with the so-called Green Revolution, which started in Mexico towards the end of World War II. We were successful feeding the world, but variety was nearly lost. The protectors of heirloom veggies and seed guardians like the author are working to make sure our past doesn’t go extinct.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5. My thanks to Chelsea Green Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced ebook copy. I hope the final book has lots of photos of the remarkable vegetables that were described.