According to Alan Davidson in The Oxford Companion to Food, when Europeans arrived in Canada they were met by Micmac Indians, who were very fond of shellfish. They were consumed in such quantities by native Americans that, at favorite gathering places, empty shells were piled in mounds up to 10 feet high. It may have taken a while, however, for some Europeans to acquire a taste for them. Records indicate that in the 1620s the Pilgrims fed clams and mussels to their hogs with the explanation that they are “the meanest of God’s blessings.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that “Corn was first domesticated by native people in southern Mexico 10,000 years ago.…. Its culture had spread as far north as southern Maine by the time of the European settlement of North America, and native Americans taught European colonists to grow the indigenous grains. Since its introduction into Europe by Christopher Columbus and other explorers and colonists, corn has spread to all areas of the world suitable to its cultivation…. It is the most important crop in the United States and is a staple food in many places.”
Tomatoes originated in the Andes of South America near present day Peru. By 500 B.C., the Aztecs were cultivating tomatoes as a food crop in Mexico. The native fruit was small, like a cherry tomato, and probably yellow, not red. In Nahuatl, they were called tomatl, which the Spanish changed to tomate. Most reports credit Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes with transporting the small golden globes to Europe after he captured the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) in 1521. But it is possible that Christopher Columbus took them back as early as 1493.
That Spain’s romance with the tomato transcends mere culinary interests is evidenced by the annual “Tomatina Festival” held on the last Wednesday in August in the town of Bunol, near Valencia. This collective mayhem consists of a massive food fight in which an estimated 20,000 supposedly adult participants hurl 120,000 tons of over-ripe tomatoes at one another in the streets, covering both the people and the village in a red tomato pulp slick. When the commotion subsides people head to the showers while the fire department hoses down the streets (Note that the acidity of tomatoes acts as a natural disinfectant that leaves the streets squeaky clean). Since its onset in 1945 as a spontaneous adolescent food fight during a parade, the Festival has grown to an international tourist attraction that gives the local economy a welcome boost.
Potatoes are a new world crop, first domesticated in what is now southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia between 8000 and 5000 B.C. They were a staple for the Inca Empire, and for the Spaniards who conquered them and remained in Latin America mining silver. Sailors who returned to Spain from the Andes brought potatoes back along with the silver, and historians have speculated that tubers not eaten on the voyages were taken ashore and planted before the end of the 16th century.
Avocados are the fruit of a native American plant that originated in south central Mexico sometime between 7000 and 5000 B.C. Several millennia passed before the wild variety was cultivated; archaeologists in Peru have found avocado seeds buried with Incan mummies dating to 750 B.C., and there is evidence avocados were cultivated in Mexico as early as 500 B.C. Spanish conquistadores, tongue tied pronouncing its native name, renamed it aguacate, which later became avocado in English.
In its native ground in Mexico and Central America, the cacao tree grows to 60 feet or taller and, when pollinated, forms long sheaths, hanging from the trunk, which each house 30 to 40 almond shaped beans. There is evidence that cacao beans were harvested by the Aztec, Olmec and Maya peoples, among others, at least as early as 450 B.C., but some experts place the date much earlier. It is possible that Columbus took cacao beans to Spain after his fourth mission to the Americas in 1502, but one of the first descriptions of a chocolate drink was written in 1568 by Bernal Diaz, who was with Hernan Cortes in his conquest of the Aztec Empire in what is now Mexico:
“From time to time they served him (the Aztec emperor Montezuma) in cups of pure gold a certain drink made from cacao. It was said that it gave one power over women, but this I never saw. I did see them bring in more than fifty large pitchers of cacao with froth in it, and he drank some of it, the women serving him with great reverence.”
The Spanish, concerned that this newfound delicacy required significant effort to obtain, tried to withhold it from the rest of Europe. But, over time, that endeavor failed. At the dawn of the 17th century Florentine merchant Francesco Carletti made contact with the Maya near what is now El Salvador and Guatemala, and cacao was discovered anew.