Fear No Fruit

It's hard to imagine a time when mushrooms, kiwifruit, alfalfa sprouts, shallots, and spaghetti squash weren't grocery store staples. But as recently as the late 1950s, these commonplace foods were considered exotic delicacies and rarely stocked on supermarket shelves. Frieda Caplan changed that. While working at the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market in the 1960s, Caplan took risks by importing foods from around the world to the U.S. market and—through tenacity and marketing genius—made them appealing to American buyers. Striking out on her own after her initial success, Caplan became the first woman to found, own, and operate a wholesale produce company in the U.S.—running a business that introduced more than 200 new fruits and vegetables to the country, most notably Chinese gooseberries, which took the nation by storm in the 1960s after Caplan renamed it kiwi. Filmmaker Mark Brian Smith's fascinating documentary chronicling Caplan's life and influential career features interviews with 91-year-old Caplan, her two daughters (who currently run the company), and other culinary luminaries who talk about Caplan's considerable impact on American cuisine over a course of 50 years. The scope of her reach and forethought is staggering, a point particularly made during a segment that rolls out all of the foods Caplan championed during her career. Without Caplan, the American palate would be significantly blander. Equally impressive is Caplan's role as a trailblazing feminist who rose to the top of a then-male dominated profession and changed it forever. Highly recommended. (P. Morehart)