3 Review(s)

The fascinating story of Clarence Birdseye, the creative inventor whose fast-freezing method revolutionized the way America cooks and lives. While working as a fur trapper in Labrador, Canada, Clarence Birdseye encountered an age-old problem: bad food and an unappealing, unhealthy diet. However, he observed that fresh vegetables wetted and left outside in the Arctic winds froze in a way that maintained their integrity after thawing. As a result, he developed his patented Birdseye freezing process and started the company that still bears his name. Birdseye forever changed the way we preserve, store, and distribute food, and the way we eat. Mark Kurlansky's vibrant and affectionate narrative reveals Clarence Birdseye as a quintessential "can-do" American inventor--his other patents include an electric sunlamp, a harpoon gun to tag finback whales, and an improved incandescent lightbulb--and shows how the greatest of changes can come from the simplest of ideas and the unlikeliest of places. About the Author Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of many books, including The Food of a Younger Land, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, Salt: A World History, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, and The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. He lives in New York City.