Dr. Lowman’s latest Nature’s Secrets column in newsobserver.com:
In our zest to breed the most resilient crops, agriculture is fast losing the genetic diversity of many food plants. Apples and tomatoes, with their shrinking heirloom stocks, are prime examples.
On the other hand, an extraordinary smorgasbord of tropical fruits still remains in the wild without genetic modification, and most never tasted by the average consumer. Some mouth-watering bites include casimiroa, longan, mabolo, durian, duku, sapodilla, rambutan, snakefruit, and soursop that have prominent roles both in nutrition and also in history as inspiration for exploration, warfare, love affairs, and global conquest.
Global exploration led to the distribution of many tropical fruits.
The development of the fruit-canning industry in the 19th century catapulted fruits as an important global economic driver. In the 8th century, Chinese Emperor Hsuan Tsung tried to win the love of Princess Yang Kuei Fei with a gift of lychees that nearly bankrupted his empire. Malay’s Sultan of Johor was obsessed with jackfruit – which ultimately ended his 17th-century dynasty and cost him his life. Queen Victoria offered a reward to any British citizen who could successfully import delicious mangosteens during her reign in the 19th century; avocados and pineapples played similar aristocratic roles in other cultures. When Christopher Columbus first brought pineapples back to Europe from their native South America (apologies to Hawaii), it was called the “noblest of all fruits.” Halfway around the world, the pineapple-based Singapore sling was later concocted in Singapore at the Raffles Hotel by a bartender named Ngiam Tong Boon.
