Simon Leyland has somehow managed to build a career out of becoming intensely interested in things that most people overlook. In this case, vegetables.

He is the author of The Men Who Stare at Hens, A Curious Guide to London, and several other works exploring the stranger corners of history, language, and culture. His writing combines meticulous research with dry English humor, examining the peculiar habits, improbable beliefs, and magnificent absurdities that have shaped human civilization.

His research has taken him through Roman banquets, medieval monasteries, Victorian kitchen gardens, and more seed catalogues than any well-adjusted person should ever read. Along the way he has discovered that vegetables have started wars, inspired religious arguments, bankrupted kingdoms, launched scientific revolutions, and occasionally poisoned the people who loved them.

He firmly believes that every vegetable has a story. Some simply require more butter than others.

Simon lives in rural Norfolk, where he grows very little, weeds even less, and now finds himself apologizing to turnips for underestimating them.