“Sooner or later your fingers close on that one moist-cold spud that the spade has accidentally sliced clean through, shining wetly white and giving off the most unearthly of earthly aromas. It's the smell of fresh soil in the spring, but fresh soil somehow distilled or improved upon, as if that wild, primordial scene has been refined and bottled: eau de pomme de terre. You can smell the cold inhuman earth in it, but there's the cozy kitchen to, for the smell of potatoes is, at least by now, to us, the smell of comfort itself, a smell as blankly welcoming as spud flesh, a whiteness that takes up memories and sentiments as easily as flavors. To smell a raw potato is to stand on the very threshold of the domestic and the wild. (241)”
Quote by Michael Pollan
Work
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire is a thought-provoking examination of the intricate relationships between humans and plants. The author uses a plant's-eye view to explore the evolution of human desires and how these desires have shaped the development of agriculture, culture, and society. The book examines the apple, tulip, potato, and cannabis, revealing the deep connections between these plants and the human experience. more
Author
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