How Frieda Caplan Changed the Way We Eat
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
(Simon & Schuster)
(pub.1.12.2021) 32 pages
Author: Mara Rockliff
Illustrator: Giselle Potter
Character: Frieda Caplan
Overview: "In 1956, Frieda Caplan started working at the Seventh Street Produce Market in Los Angeles. Instead of competing with the men in the business with their apples, potatoes, and tomatoes, Frieda thought, why not try something new? Starting with mushrooms, Frieda began introducing fresh and unusual foods to her customers—snap peas, seedless watermelon, mangos, and more!
This groundbreaking woman brought a whole world of delicious foods to the United States, forever changing the way we eat. Frieda Caplan was always willing to try something new—are you?" Tantalizing taste:
"It took a while for everybody to get used to Frieda's funny-looking fruits.
'A watermelon can't be seedless!' (seedless watermelon, 1962)
'Bananas should be yellow, man!' (red bananas, 1978)
'Is this from outer space, or what?' (kiwano (horned melon), 1984)
But if Frieda felt it in her elbows, she knew it was going to catch on ... eventually."
And something more: Mara Rockliff writes in the back of the book: "When Frieda started selling produce, the average supermarket carried about sixty-five kinds of fruits and vegetables. Now shoppers can find seven to eight hundred, many of them introduced by Frieda's... A scientist once told Frieda that there were up to eighty thousand edible species of plants on Earth. Frieda was ready to try them all."