Someone just told me that potatoes were unknown to Europe and Asia prior to the discovery of America. Is this true?
If so, this confuses my perspective of “traditional” cuisine. I thought that the Irish always ate potatoes. The potato famine demolished the country. What did they eat before potatoes? And what about Indian food? Potatoes are a part of most Indian cuisine. And the Russians with vodka. How could they have produced vodka without potatoes?
And then I learn that pasta was brought back to Italy by Marco Polo after he visited China. I had figured that the Italians had been eating pasta since the beginning of time.
Are “traditional” foods really only a few hundred years old?
Yup, potatos, tomatoes, corn/maize are all of new world origin. Potatos spread rapidly (among other reasons) because they were nutritious, hardy, and required relatively little work to maintain - leaving the peasants free to raise cash crops. The potato famine was caused by an overreliance on potatos (or rather a specific potato) while the majority of the farming effort was spent on animals and wheat which could be sold to pay the rent
It wasn’t just “traditional” European cuisine that was radically altered by trade with the Americas.
As we discussed in this thread, satay sauce (at least in its current form) was unknown in Southeast Asia before traders brought peanuts and chilies from the New World to the region.
Vodka was traditionally distilled from grains. Wheat was mostly used in Russia and the Baltic countries, rye in Poland. Russians claim that the best vodkas are still made from grain mash not potatoes. In any case, don’t forget that potatoes are not the only root vegetable – beets are also used to make vodka.
This site discusses the origins of pasta in Italy.
*"The first certain record of noodles cooked by boiling is in the Jerusalem Talmud, written in Aramaic in the 5th century AD. The word used for the noodles was itriyah. In Arabic references this word stands for the dried noodles purchased from a vendor, rather than homemade noodles which would have been fresh. Dried noodles are portable, while fresh must be eaten immediately. More than likely, pasta was introduced during the Arab conquests of Sicily, carried in as a dry staple.
The romantic myth that Marco Polo brought pasta on his return from China has long been debunked."*
About half our standard crops are of new world origin. Imagine Italian food without tomatos. Thai food without chiles. African food without peanuts. Irish without potatoes. No corn, no pumpkins, no squash, almost no beans, no sweet potatoes, no chiles, no peppers, no sunflower seeds.
The incorporation of New World crops led to an agricultural revolution in the old world, and allowed greater population densities. Our image of a typical indian is of a nomadic hunter-gatherer. But the reality is that the vast majority of american indians were farmers.
Tobacco is another new world bring-home. So is chocolate
I know tobacco and chocolate aren’t staple traditional foods, but life without them would be not as we know it.
The colonists sought out new lands, vanquished them and brought home all the goodies.
Also, though, these same baddie colonists were the precursor to the early settlers of the new lands. Settlers took things with them to the new lands, not just disease and pestilence, as some might think, but seeds and livestock etc, to live in the new places.
Somehow, I only “knew” about the Marco Polo thing, which turned out to be wrong. But the Italians couldn’t really enjoy their pasta without the tomato sauce, now could they? Well, they did have olive oil and garlic, I suppose.
Somehow, I only “knew” about the Marco Polo thing, which turned out to be wrong. But the Italians couldn’t really enjoy their pasta without the tomato sauce, now could they? Well, they did have olive oil and garlic, I suppose.
A reference to the problem that Tolkien had with Middle-Earth agriculture. He wanted his characters to use potatoes and tobacco, but they wouldn’t fit into his view of Middle Earth as prehistoric Europe, where they would’ve been unknown. So he called them taters and pipeweed, respectively, to fudge the issue.
He says in one of the Appendices that pipeweed was probably “some variety of Nicotiana”, dispelling the fond notions of the counterculture that the hobbits were all smoking grass. He covers the geographical problem by saying that it was first grown by (I think) Toby Longbottom, and “how and where he got the leaf is unknown.”