Meet fearless Frieda Caplan—the produce pioneer who changed the way Americans eat by introducing exciting new fruits and vegetables, from baby carrots to blood oranges to kiwis—in this brightly illustrated nonfiction picture book!
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? Staring 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?---from the publisher
32 pages 978-1534460072 Ages 5-9
Keywords: biography, women, social activist, food, nutrition, 5 year old, 6 year old, 7 year old, 8 year old, 9 year old, narrative nonfiction, informational picture book
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“Call any vegetable
Call it by name
Call one today
When you get off the train
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
That the vegetable will respond to you”
-- Frank Zappa (1967)
TRY IT! is the story of innovative business woman Frieda Caplan who went to work as a bookkeeper at a produce company in LA in 1956. Six years later, she had her own produce business at the big Los Angeles wholesale market. She constantly encouraged her customers to try all sorts of produce not regularly seen in the market. As a result, she’s responsible for popularizing scores of products that were previously unknown to most Americans.
Products she made popular include mushrooms, kiwifruit, Jicama, sugar snap peas, Asian pears, seedless watermelons, Habanero peppers, spaghetti squash, and so many others.
I love the vibrant illustrations by Giselle Potter. Her watercolor illustrations have a recognizable, distinct style.
When schools return to normal, this book begs to be read in the classroom, accompanied by a tasting of some of the illustrated fruits and vegetables.
Try it!
Recommended by: Richie Partington, MLIS, California USA
See more of Richie's Picks https://richiespicks.pbworks.
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We should all thank Frieda Caplan, the lone woman working in produce in 1956 in Los Angeles, California. All the other produce sellers were men and they offered the same, boring produce for sale: potatoes, apples, tomatoes. All those are tasty and great but Frieda tried everything. She began by selling mushrooms. She became so good at it, she was known as the Mushroom Queen. She introduced kiwifruit, jicama, seedless watermelons, Asian pears and many more new fruits and vegetables to our palates and PLATES.
In 1956 when she started selling produce, the average grocery store only carried around sixty-five produce items. Today, over eight hundred items are found in the supermarket. From Buddha's hand to starfruit to alfalfa sprouts, we can look to Frieda Caplan as the reason we know and love these foods today. Quite the rabble rouser, when Frieda was honored in 1979 as "Produce MAN of the Year," she handed the award back to the presenters. After that, a new title was given to this honor: Produce Marketer of the Year which she then accepted.
In 2020, Frieda died at age ninety-six after enjoying "...a long and FRUITful life," the book notes. A page of notes about Frieda follow the story complete with a list of sources.
A loving tribute to an outstanding pioneer in nutrition and a strong market expert, Frieda Caplan is presented by the author and illustrator in this easy to understand, yet entertaining book about a little known female figure in history.
Recommended by: Pamela Thompson, Librarian, Author, Blogger, Florida USA
See more of her recommendations: https://booksbypamelathompson.blogspot.com/2021/
