In turn coveted, despised, rehabilitated and forgotten, vegetables are now back on our plates. Not just for their tasty qualities and health benefits, but also out of a desire to bring back into fashion foods perceived as ‘genuine’, with less impact on the environment and the climate.

In this book, Éric Birlouez takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of vegetables. For over ten thousand years, along with cereals and pulses, they have formed the basis of our diet. More than fifty vegetables are featured here, including some that were 'forgotten' - rediscovered today, such as parsnips and crosnes - and those from abroad, such as Asian cabbage. You'll discover how they became edible and tasty, thanks to the determination of farmers and cooks who, in turn domesticated wild vegetables, detoxified them by cooking or fermentation and crossed varieties.

Let's take a journey through the history of vegetables, our biological, cultural and symbolic heritage.

In our society of plenty, cereals and dried pulses have lost their former “essential food” position. This book takes us on a journey through space and time to recount the story of these foods, stressing their importance in terms of nutritional values, their role in the emergence of civilization, as well as their cultural, symbolic, economical and gastronomic aspects.