Botanist David Fairchild grew up in Kansas at the end of the 19th century. He loved plants, and he loved travel, and he found a way to combine both into a job for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At the age of 22, he created the Section of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the USDA, and for the next 37 years, he traveled the world in search of useful plants to bring back to America. He visited every continent except Antarctica and brought back mangos, quinoa, dates, cotton, soybeans, bamboo and the flowering Japanese cherry trees that blossom all over Washington D.C. each spring, as well as hundreds of other plants. All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro talked with Daniel Stone , author of The Food Explorer: The True Adventures Of A Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats , which recounts Fairchild's sometimes harrowing adventures acquiring the familiar foods we eat and plants we take for granted today. Interview Highlights On how common a traveling foodie
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