Tag - History

You can’t beat a good book

You can listen to this page as an audio file. A Cultural History of Plants* by Annette Giesecke (Anthology Editor) and David Mabberley (Anthology Editor), 2022. Bloomsbury Publishing. I like books [actually, I love them...

Happy Pumpkin Day to all our American Readers!

Happy Pumpkin Day to all our American Readers!

Today is a holiday (Thanksgiving) in the USA and most of our American readers will be taking a well earned day off in order to overeat and watch football (as opposed to soccer 😉 ) This afternoon as you slowly realize...

In praise of Urtica dioica

In the bad old days before Mr Sainsbury and Mr Tesco worked their airmiles magic on the planet, this time of year was known as the “hungry gap” – the time between using up last year’s harvest and...

Heart-shaped potato

Go to work on a potato

I didn’t do modern history at school so my impression of the industrial revolution is largely a mish-mash of pop history and some misremembered Industrial Archaeology courses. What I do recall is that the emphasis...