A lot of new world plants were brought back to Europe for consumption: the tomato, potato, squash, etc… But apart from the turkey, I can’t think of any new world animals that have made it big in the Old World. I doubt that opossum and raccoon are common table foods in France or Germany. And I don’t know how popular turkey is either.
Any one know of examples of New World species commercially grown and consumed in the Old World?
AFAIK the only other animal that would be considered “livestock” that’s native to the Americas is the Llama, and those aren’t commonly eaten.
Buffalo? Still, most New World animals that we eat aren’t really domesticated.
No love for guinea pigs?
(The New World is severely lacking in domesticated animals in comparison to the Old World.)
Turkey is a popular food in Europe, especially at this time of year.
What about fish? Are salmon and trout considered new world species?
The turkey is really the only one of any significance. Next in importance is the Muscovy Duck, which was domesticated in Mexico and Central America, and is still kept widely. It is not nearly as popular as domestic breeds derived from the Mallard, however. Llamas and guinea pigs were raised for meat in South America, but never caught on in the Old World other than as pets. Bison were never domesticated by Native Americans, although they are raised domestically now.
Israel is the world’s largest per capita consumer of turkey meat, by a large margin. All of it is raised locally.
Yeah, basically the nomadic natives did not domesticate any significant variety of food animals. Llamas were mainly beasts of burden; Jared Diamond’s “Guns Germs and Steel” goes into a lot of detail about why various places around the world did not have good choices for domestic animals.
Buffalo, for example, were apparently sufficiently numerous (and ornery) that domestication was not worth while.
This was one of the central points in Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”
Edit: Ah, I was too slow. Oh well.
At the time of contact, most of the native societies of the New World were not nomadic but agricultural. As the OP mentioned, they had domesticated a wide variety of crops, including some of the most important ones worldwide today such as corn and the potato.
Salmon and trout are not New World Species. Salmon are anadromous, meaning they live most of their life in the ocean but return to fresh water to spawn. They are found throughout the world. Here is a link about Atlantic Salmon and the list of countries where they are found is at the bottom.
http://www.atlanticsalmontrust.org/salmon_facts/atlantic_salmon.html
Pacific Salmon are similarly distributed around the Pacific Rim in China, Taiwan, the Koreas, Russia, etc. in addition to North America.
Brown trout are native to Britain and Europe. Many other species are sea-run trout and are also found around the Pacific Rim. Lot’s of trout in Russia.
Buffalo are not native to North America, although bison are often called “buffalo.”
Okay. I knew they’re an ocean species that spawned in their native fresh water but I wasn’t sure if their spawning grounds were just in the new world or were global.