Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man

I learned a lot and enjoyed the process. I really enjoy this author and have read a lot of his books.

As a child growing up in the 1960s, I distinctly remember packages of Birds Eye frozen food in the grocer's freezer. I always wondered about the name of the product as it seemed a somewhat unusual name. I didn't realize at that time that the name of the product was derived from the name of the individual that invented the process for freezing food. I do know it was a premium brand, and my mother used to buy cheaper brands for everyday use. The only time we get Birds Eye food was when we were having company or my mother was cooking a dinner for celebration.Clarence "Bob" Birdseye was a distinctly unique individual. The author follows his life from the time he was a young boy interested in hunting and nature and on to his time at Amherst College. He details the Birdseye family and Clarence's time in the desert Southwest working as a naturalist and how he had to drop out of college due to financial hardship in the family. He then describes Birdseye's work in the Rocky mountains investigating outbreaks of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. From there, Birdseye went to Labrador where he lived for a number of years eking out a living as a fur trader. It was during this time that Birdseye began to wonder why food frozen Labrador was so much better than food frozen in the United States.Birdseye was obviously a very talented man with running credible imagination and a thirst for knowledge of how things operated. If he didn't understand them, he would study them until he did understand them. It appears he had an incredible memory and an ability to think outside the box. Birdseye is famous for a number of inventions and it amazes me that he is not better known for the work he did, not only in frozen food, but in numerous other fields. I am also amazed that I had never learned anything about Clarence Birdseye, as he spent much of his career working in Gloucester Massachusetts. I grew up in Massachusetts, and yet had never really known much about man. He is a historical figure that can teach us a great deal about the process of invention.Mark Kurlansky has done a wonderful job of detailing the life of Clarence Birdseye and the inventions that he created. The book is very readable and completely enjoyable. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in history, inventions, industrial figures or who is just plain curious about the invention of frozen foods.

Clarence Birdseye was born in Brooklyn in 1886. Before he died in 1956 he had more than 200 patents and was called the "father of frozen food". According to this author, a few of his inventions changed the course of the twentieth century.There is so much information in this engrossing book, so many facts about inventions during the above time period by numerous curious people; so much information about Birdseye, his insatiable curiousity, inventions, travels, life in the west, home in Peru, Labrador, numerous jobs, his eccentricity, love of family, humor,fishing, - well, you just can't read the book all at once - it took me longer than expected to read and enjoy all this new-found knowledge!Mark Kurlansky had to dig for all this information and he has written an exceptionally interesting book. Altho refrigeration and the manufacturing of frozen foods is not fully addressed until the second half of this book, the other subjects are absolutely amazing! I well remember helping my parents take food to the large ice house in town in the 1940's, walking into the freezing room, opening "our" rented drawer and depositing asparagus, carrots, etc. from our small farm. (Brrrr it was so cold in there!)With the help of Clarence Birdseye and others, freezers were invented and installed in supermarkets, and the rest of the story is all in the book! Trial and error, disappointments, finally success! The book is rich with information on this and many other aspects on manufacturing.There is much more to the book than freezing food. This man, Birdseye is one of a kind! He must have had an iron stomach. (his food choices are unusual) His mind was constantly looking for ways to improve everything and today the world is the beneficiary of his ideas and inventions that have been continually perfected and in use today. This non-fiction author has chosen to recognize Clarence (Bob) Birdseye and given us little-known information we can enjoy learning about.Enjoy the book if you have a curious mind, and also "Birds Eye" frozen food in the supermarket. They still need to capture the flavor of fresh string beans tho, in my opinion!

I found Birdseye's life pretty uninteresting.My interest was revived, however, in the section dealing with the problems which had to be overcome for the spread of frozen foods into the stores. Since I grew up in the 1940-50s, I have vivid memories of a GE refrigerator with a dinky frozen food compartment which could only accommodate one package of frozen peas and one can of frozen OJ. The author correctly focuses upon the problem of getting stores to accept frozen food displays but neglects the problem of dinky home refrigerators {or even ice chests} as an impediment to getting frozen foods into the household. A combination of savvy appliance manufacturers and the quality and growing availability of frozen foods jump started this revolution in a fairly short time frame.Finally, it helped that Americans had accumulated considerable savings during WW II and were ready to spend that money. Birdseye was not very interested in all these forces at work upon him and so the author tends to neglect them also. Too bad.One final thought. I always thought the name Birdseye on the food packages was some advertising invention. Until the book came along, I didn't realize that Birdseye was a person! I've experienced this same revelation when looking at car model names such as Buick and Dodge to name but a few.

Fascinating!

This is a fascinating book about someone you never knew existed. I thought Birdseye was a marketer's invention. This book is written in Mark Kurlansky's usual inimitable style with a scattering of recipes and interesting historical facts. It's not a huge book but he packs some great stories into the pages. If you haven't read any of his writings before this is as good a place to start. Once you do, like me, you'll likely be hooked.

Unfortunately the book cover appears cheap. The edges and corners are slightly battered, although the book is new. It's a gift, so I'm disappointed by that. I'm sure the book itself is great.

Birdseye is a great book, as always by Kurlansky. A lot of what goes into the investigation of this man's life is based on tireless work by the author through interviews and spending hours reading through sources. I have to applaud Kurlansky on his efforts, yet this book lacked for me the snappy facts which I like. I really enjoyed Salt, which gave me that satisfaction.Birdseye is a good read, yet I felt the book was a bit short (Kindle version).I give the book 4 stars. An amazing tale of a genius, yet not necessarily Kurlansky's best work.

What a interesting man. A true pioneer of the food industry who had such great belief in his ideas while so many doubted him.