Actually, the star’s a turkey
For an evening, Thanksgiving’s plants shoved the big, basted bird aside and claimed the center of the dining room table. In the eyes of a botanist, the year’s biggest meal is a celebration not so much of our feathered friends, but of the plants in our lives: the potatoes, carrots, cloves, lettuce, celery and sage, of all the holiday foods that people savor, from stuffing to cranberry sauce to pumpkin pie. Pamela Diggle, a visiting professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, took a lecture hall full of Arnold Arboretum visitors on a botanical tour of America’s favorite food holiday on Wednesday (Nov. 16). She explained that though the turkey is the star of the day, the plants on the menu give it that extra oomph. “A lot of the textures, flavors, and aromas come from the plants in that dinner,” Diggle said. Diggle can be forgiven if she views the nation’s annual poultry pig-out...