by Mara Rockliff
Illustrations by Giselle Potter
Beach Lane Books
Simon & Schuster
2021
32 pages
ISBN: 9781534460072
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.
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