{"product_id":"digital-product-12","title":"Curious Harvest: 80 strange, true, and half-true stories about what's in the world's pantry","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCurious Harvest: Eighty Strange, True, and Half-True Stories Hidden in the World's Pantry\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e(Print available soon on Amazon)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn emperor spent his final years chasing a mushroom that promised immortality. He never got it. A Roman fortune the size of an empire vanished because one plant simply ran out. A cheese from Sardinia is legally banned across the entire European Union — and Sardinians make it anyway, on purpose, with the maggots still alive inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCurious Harvest\u003c\/i\u003e is a collection of eighty short, wonder-first stories about the strangest, darkest, funniest, and most surprising things humans have ever believed about food — and the real history hiding underneath those beliefs. Every chapter opens with a scene and no names attached, so you find out what you're actually reading about right alongside the reveal. From there, each story digs into where the legend came from, what's actually documented, and why people needed to believe it in the first place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside, you'll find:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Icelandic shark that's poisonous fresh and beloved fermented — made from an animal that may have been alive since before the American Revolution\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe real reason garlic wards off vampires (and the modern medical theory for where the legend actually came from)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Persian spice trade lie so effective it fooled Greek and Roman buyers for a thousand years\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe popular \"fact\" about spinach and iron that turns out to be a myth about a myth\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Welsh funeral tradition where a stranger was paid to eat a dead man's sins\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe bean-and-cake ritual that traces an unbroken line from ancient Rome to modern Mardi Gras\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhy an entire Aztec grain was banned under threat of severed hands — and how it survived anyway\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpanning every inhabited continent and several thousand years of human history, \u003ci\u003eCurious Harvest\u003c\/i\u003e treats food as what it has always actually been: a window into what people feared, worshipped, fought over, and couldn't live without. Each chapter stands entirely on its own — read it cover to cover, or open it anywhere and start.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you've ever wondered why a fairy tale, a folk remedy, or a dinner-table \"fact\" sounds a little too good to be entirely true, this book is for you.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Smith'n Shrooms","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205482905675,"sku":null,"price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0671\/5047\/9435\/files\/thumbnail_bbece856-f4c5-426d-bc8c-0b9a45997348.png?v=1789619007","url":"https:\/\/smithnshrooms.com\/products\/digital-product-12","provider":"Smith'n Shrooms","version":"1.0","type":"link"}