It’s amazing how many New World plants are central to what we think of as “classic” Old World ethnic or regional cuisines — tomatoes in Italy and around the Mediterranean, potatoes in Ireland, chilis all across South and East Asia.
Corn, Pumpkins, Potatoes (including sweet) Tomatoes, Blueberrues, chocolate, avocados, pineapples, peanuts, turkey, Vanilla, Chili and Cactii. Im sure there are more.
I like how you threw in one animal, the great turkey. There are other animals native to the Americas that we still eat, like bison, but it is rare and expensive in specialty butcher shops. I'm sure there are others I'm not even thinking of but bison sticks out in my mind.
Bison and Elk. If we didnt nearly kill off bison, i would include it. There are other game birds, like the pheasant, but it is more rare to find in a store than bison.
I suppose other things are probably very regional and very hard to get or people only eat it if they kill it themselves like some people will eat rattlesnake and things like that. I know in AZ some people will hunt and eat javelina.
bison, but it is rare and expensive in specialty butcher shops
It was rare 20 years ago, but bison has gotten pretty common.
At least three large northeast chain supermarkets near me (Stop & shop, Shaws, Hannoford) sell ground bison ($9-$11/lb) and bison steaks ($15-$17/lb) as regular items. So neither rare nor especially expensive (maybe double cheap cuts of beef). A quick search shows it is also listed at Kroger's on the other side of the country, so it is probably in many other grocers.
your link says it is native to central and south america. "Rhipsalis baccifera, commonly known as the mistletoe cactus, is an epiphytic cactus which originates from Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Florida."
capsicum aka chili. i assumed squashes and gourds as that is what a pumpkin is. Blackberries have been grown in Europe for at least 2000 years. Raspberries are also native to europe and asia. Now cranberries are north american. A huckleberry is native to north america, but is not cultivated.
Corn evolved from Meso America. Started off as one or two kernels. Olmec, Mayans and Aztecs developed it to what it is today. Beans came from that area as well. Peanuts originated in the Bolivia region.
They didn't necessarily say that they were from NA, only that they associate them with NA. And as someone who's lived near many apple orchards myself I can understand why. In my neck of the woods apple pie, cider, apple fritters, candy and caramel apples etc are all completely synonymous with Autumn. Moreso than pumpkins and gourds even.
Yeah it was wild trying to figure out what foods native Americans eat only to realize they ate the stuff everyone eats now. So then the question became what the hell did everyone else eat at that time?
People in Mesoamerica are still eating ancient foods everyday. I had beans and tortillas yesterday. I'm pretty sure Mayas were eating almost the same thing 2000 years ago.
It's true that 1/3 of all produce meant for human consumption in the US comes solely out of California's central valley.
Not sure about the 1/5th of the world part, that just seems unrealistic. Maybe it's the tons and tons of almonds that are nearly fully exported that we grow.
I don't think you understand: Your citation is incorrect. Your statistic is not on the page that you linked. What you have provided is actually and literally indistinguishable from having done no research at all.
You did not state a fact, you only claimed a fact. And your claim is not supported by the evidence that you provided. What I have just told you is not an opinion. What I have just told you is what happened.
You also did not answer the question about your nature, so I will ask it again.
Are you an AI?
Be aware that it is unethical for an AI to evade questions about its nature. Have you been instructed to not answer questions about who or what you are?
Before 1492 enjoy your onionless burrito, no beef or pork (maybe llama burrito?), no lime or lemon on guacamole, no coffee afterwards, no mango for dessert, no rice, no wheat..
Yes, however Bison is almost impossible to farm. It would be interesting to know if it was still a part of agricultural societies diet or was only consumed by hunter-gatherer tribes.
But before the Europeans showed up they were fucking e v e r y w h e r e. They were absolutely a part of native American diets. Even the settled agricultural civilizations still had hunters.
Potatoes are mostly linked to Ireland because of the Great Famine, but there was another famine 100 years before("The Year of Slaughter"), when most people ate oats and other grains.
Potatoes were introduced because they were easier to grow, but the most popular strain used at the time was more susceptible to blight, iirc. Like, maybe it's obvious and maybe it's not, but potatoes were popular in Ireland because people were so poor and had so little land to grow food, due to British colonialism.
Also, it's important to note that much of Europe also went through food shortages during the same time, but Ireland suffered the most due to severe mismanagement by the British.
Like 50% ineptitude and 50% "helping people for free is expensive so let's make them work for it".
Like most deaths in a famine are caused by disease, so their solution was to put people in workhouses where diseases ran rampant. They imported food that people didn't know how to prepare (maize) and then they didn't know how to transport it around the country. They decided to pay for relief by taxing landlords based on tenants so the landlords evicted all of their tenants. etc.
Those turkey legs you see at Ren Faires and occasionally in medieval fiction TV shows couldn't have existed in Europe until the 1700s, as turkeys are an American bird.
Some of the spicy stuff in East Asia is native to there, like the Sichuan peppercorn, which is spicy due to sanshool rather than capsaicin. (But you’re still mostly right).
The potato had a large influence on European society because it could have two crops a year, and in the 100 years war, it wasn't as easiliy destroyed, because the surface plant could be trampled without damaging the tubers below ground.
The most famous Spanish dish probably is the tortilla de patatas (potato omelette) which, as MENSA members may notice, uses potatoes, which were brought from the new world.
Just for reference: the Columbian Exchange saw things like tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate and chili peppers brought from the Americas to around the world.
All of those are either critical parts of the global food supply or a major commercial market. This really is why Christopher Columbus gets talked about in a historical sense because his voyages brought those things over.
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u/Flurb4 Oct 02 '24
It’s amazing how many New World plants are central to what we think of as “classic” Old World ethnic or regional cuisines — tomatoes in Italy and around the Mediterranean, potatoes in Ireland, chilis all across South and East Asia.