Stephen Barstow has devoted 30 years to trialling the world’s perennial vegetables.
It is unlikely that anyone anywhere has tried as many different species of edible plants – just witness his salad comprising 538 varieties in 2003 – earning him the title of ‘Extreme Salad Man’!
Stephen grew interested in green issues whilst studying in Norwich. He began eating whole-foods baking bread and learning the names of birds and plants. He became vegetarian when studying in Edinburgh and began a vegetable patch at his landlords flat. He was even sold with the building to the new owner as a lodger/gardener. In 1981 Stephen moved to Norway for work and found vegetarianism was only a small underground movement and that supermarkets stocked little vegetables. To survive they grew their own, and now Stephen has a garden that takes over two days to tour and 2,000 or so edibles, each with their own ethnobotanical story to tell.
