two slices of bread. Although there is great controversy and conflicting claims
over where the American hamburger was first served, it is a food item that now
indelibly belongs to “American” cuisine. Since the 1960s, the hamburger as a
common meal has spread to every corner of the world, primarily via American fast
food chains. But it is not just American food that has been globalized; the Japanese
rice delicacy calledsushihas also spread internationally over the past 20 years,
and has become a popular alternative to fast food even in the United States. The
great diversity of foodways reminds us that food and the ways it is prepared vary
geographically, and it is these spatial patterns that give the peoples and cultures
who produce and consume it a unique character that enhances and enriches the
human experience.
Forests
Forest is, most technically, a term naming a particular floristic association on
Earth. A forest is an extensive area or region dominated by trees and their canopy
of leaves that shade Earth’s surface. Usually, the trees are accompanied by bushes
and other plants of lesser mass. One such definition cannot do the term justice
because many, many definitions have been offered. This is a testament to the
importance forests have held for various purposes. Of greatest importance is that
trees are the sole provider of wood—cellulose fibers embedded in lignin—which
has great strength and can be used in a myriad of applications.
A tree is usually the largest single piece of biomass in the vicinity and quite
obvious to the viewer. Less obvious is the solar energy stored during photosynthe-
sis, the water and nutrients taken up from the soil, and the web of plant and animal
life predicated on the existence of the tree. How did much of the planet’s surface
come to be covered with trees? Land life came from the ocean somewhat over a
half a billion years ago with land plants becoming common about 460 million
years ago in the Ordovician Period. Trees appeared and began to cover the land
some 370 million years ago toward the end of the Devonian period. The evolution
of trees included development of their ability to help alter the upper rock crust of
Earth into soils and allowing the further evolution of more tree species, other
plants, and animals. Early trees were gymnosperms (conifers), carrying their seeds
in cones; it was this type of tree that dominated the first forests. The angiosperm
trees have been the more prolific over the last 50 million years. The angiosperms
dominate with a now-diminished number of gymnosperm species. Approximately
one hundred thousand tree species are alive on Earth with many more having been
lost during our evolutionary history.
Forests 131