A World Without A Baked Potato


by davidbunch - Date: 2010-07-17 - Word Count: 453 Share This!

Imagine a world without a baked potato or candied sweet potato; without string-less beans or baked beans; without roasting ears, popcorn or roasted peanuts! A world without the succulent tomato, the savory pumpkin pie, or the aromatic pineapple, is difficult to picture. Yet such was the world of the Knights of the Round Table, of Robin Hood, and the Maid of Orleans. Accustomed as we are to a great variety of fruits and vegetables, we do not realize how limited were the diets and range of vegetable foods of our European ancestors before the discovery of the Americas. In all Europe only the Saracens in Spain had much diversity of fruits, or enjoyed vegetables of high quality. They had introduced these products from the Near East and other parts of the Moslem world, and they were the most skillful agriculturists of Europe.

But even their vegetable markets would have been considered meager by our shoppers of today. Only a few places in southeastern China, in Java, and perhaps limited areas in India and Africa, had a variety of fruits and vegetables of good quality and comparable in any way with those of the Americas, from Virginia and Illinois to Brazil and Peru. In general, the Native Americans ate far better and in greater variety than did the Europeans, Africans, and Asiatics. The first European voyages to the New World were to regions where agriculture and horticulture were fully developed. The choicest and most useful kinds of fruit and vegetables were promptly taken-especially from the West Indies and Brazil-to Spain and Portugal.

Wherever possible they were speedily utilized in the warmer regions of Europe, and were carried by slave traders to Africa, where they penetrated from the coasts to the remote interior. The Aztec soldiers of the Spanish army took native foods from Mexico to the Philippines, and from there their culture spread to China, Japan, and throughout the East Indies and Malaya. At the same time the Portuguese carried food plants to Ceylon, India, Malakka, Amboyna, and the rest of the Molukkas.

It is true that many people, in all parts of the world, resist attempts to change their diet or food habits. At the same time people of all lands, whose diet is often insufficient in quantity and quality, joyously hail the introduction of a new, savory and nutritious food plant. The new food plant is regarded as a great benefaction, and passes with astonishing rapidity from tribe to tribe, until it crosses a continent, or penetrates vast distances into the interior, unless stopped by the barriers of climate, deserts, or great mountain ranges. As one result of these miscellaneous distributions, people soon began to claim introduced plants as of native origin.

Related Tags: vegetable foods, variety of fruits and vegetables, american vegetables, vegetables in continents

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