The true adventures of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century food explorer who traveled the world and introduced diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes-and thousands more-to the American plate.

In the nineteenth century, American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. But as a new century approached, appetites broadened, and David Fairchild, a botanist with an insatiable lust to explore and go through the world, lay out searching for foods that would enrich the American farmer and enchant the American eater.

Kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and hops from Bavaria. Peaches from China, avocados from Chile, and pomegranates from Malta. Fairchild’s finds weren’t just limited by food: From Egypt he repaid a number of cotton that revolutionized a business, and via Japan he released the cherry blossom tree, permanently brightening America’s capital. Along the way, he was caught, caught illnesses, and bargained with island tribes. But his culinary ambition came throughout a formative era, and through him, America transformed into the many diverse food program ever created.