Based on Michael Pollan best-selling book, this PBS special takes us on an exploration of the human relationship with the plant world -- seen from the plants' point of view. It shows how four familiar species -- the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato -- evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control. I really enjoyed his point of view as well as the historical perspective on each of these plants. I never knew that most apples that grow in the wild taste bitter; only a few trees produce a fruit that is sweet. Another interesting fact was the tulipmania that swept Amsterdam between 1634 and 1637, when a single bulb of the most prized tulips fetched a price greater than the grandest canal houses in the city. That our human desire for intoxication may have transformed a pygmy weed like Cannabis into one of the most valuable crops in the world. It was the Irish experience with the potato that has served as the cautionary tale of the perils of growing but a single crop, a practice known as monoculture. I really enjoyed the PBS special based on his book "The Botany of Desire". It is one of my favorite PBS specials that should be shared by all.
Some of Michael's other books are The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
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