Bingo 1: Edibles
I think the only other thing I’ve read of Michael Pollan’s was Food Rules, which was as it sounds, a general rules list with brief discussion per rule. They were pretty common sense, and I generally agreed with them. I know he’s actually a bit more controversial than that, but it’s only now I know why. I’ve had This is Your Mind on Plants on my TBR shelf for a while. Now I’ve read it. While the subject isn’t edibles in the common pot-related sense (that is briefly mentioned), it’s not that far off. The plant derivatives of the title include opium and mescaline, how the plants grow (flowers and cacti respectively in those cases), their history, and how they are consumed by people, though not always legally (lawyers were consulted for some of the contents). The third plant-based edible was caffeine. Basically, this book is three long-form essays (about 90 pages each) about the author’s research, both in the knowledge and also practical senses.
The opium section tells the tale of the author’s unknowingly possibly but not certainly illegal enterprise into growing poppies; but naturally that’s not the end of things, he also was considering actually harvesting the opium and trying it. He’s clearly the sort of person who is very willing to try something for the sake of trying it (not judging here, just labeling). Somehow Pollan succeeds in getting his hands on a book of instructions for how to do that, interviews the book’s author (who gets into major legal trouble), and follows through on the experiment in growing opium poppies for the raw plant material used for the centuries-old version of the drug. The biggest non-spoilers about this pieces is that it was previously published in an abridged version in Harper’s Magazine (that’s where some of the legal consultation happened), and that no one seems to know the exact legal status or definitions of what’s ok and what’s not and when.
The caffeine section, being more of a legal and everyday use sort of plant, is in some ways more interesting because the experiment involves Pollan going off his daily caffeine habit and documenting his experience at the same time as he gets into the history of the use of the coffee and tea versions both. The science known about the effects also gets some attention, as does a bit of cultural analysis (some addressing colonialism, as it should).
The final section on mescaline involves a lot of cultural pondering as Pollan has some challenges getting access to the plant involved, mostly because it is highly restricted. Peyote cactus is apparently really touchy growing in the wild (mostly only in a few places in the SW (for the US)), and only registered members of Native American groups can legally use it in the mind-altering sense, and only then in specific ceremonial/spiritual events (the history of this is documented). People were reluctant to talk to Pollan about it, and Pollan himself to his credit does get into the cultural appropriation question with this one.
This was an interesting set of essays, although I do kind of wish there was a bit more of a conclusion to match the introduction, just to wrap up the overall ‘so what’.
