On Food and Cooking

life. The bulk of the tissue that surrounds it is
a food supply to nourish this rebirth. It’s the
distillation of the parent plant’s lifework, its
gathering of water and nitrogen and minerals
from the soil, carbon from the air, and energy
from the sun. And as such it’s an invaluable
resource for us and other creatures of the
animal kingdom who are unable to live on soil
and sunlight and air. In fact, seeds gave early
humans both the nourishment and the
inspiration to begin to shape the natural world
to their own needs. Ten thousand turbulent
years of civilization have unfolded from the
seed’s pale repose.
The story began when inhabitants of the
Middle East, Asia, and Central and South
America learned to save some large, easily
harvested seeds from wild plants, and sow
them in clearings to produce more seeds of a
similar kind. It appears that agriculture first
arose in the highlands of southeastern Turkey,
around the upper reaches of the Tigris and