8 ms·

"tomatoes didn't come to Italy until the 1500s, when Cortes brought them back from the Americas." Shocking! Somehow whenever i think of "italian food" the firs

by esrh 5y ago

"tomatoes didn't come to Italy until the 1500s, when Cortes brought them back from the Americas." Shocking! Somehow whenever i think of "italian food" the first few images that come into my mind usually involve tomatoes somehow...

klipt 5y ago
Now imagine Indian food without chilis (also from the New World).
- frutiger 5y ago
  And European food without potatoes.
- nsenifty 5y ago
  Many, particularly South Indian dishes are cooked without chili peppers still.
pjmlp 5y ago
Same applies to most spicy food we now eat in Europe, until the discovery age there were no chilli peppers around, even the African ones came from Americas.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  We did have had horseradish and mustard, so not completely devoid of spicyness, but certainly not as pervasive as today.
  - ginko 5y ago
    Don't forget pepper.
    - smt88 5y ago
      Native to India, interestingly.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Depends on the region, Portuguese mustard to this day is quite harmless in comparison with its German cousin. But yeah, there were some flavours still.
    - sologoub 5y ago
      Seems the further east the spicer mustard gets - Russian mustard seems to be quite similar to what I tried in Chinese restaurants in US (but a lot thicker, the stuff in Chinese restaurants is runny). By comparison German stuff is much sweater. Horseradish sauces are another matter though!
      - Aengeuad 5y ago
        The east/west distinction probably isn't useful here beyond the observation that black mustard seeds are the hottest followed by brown and then yellow mustard seeds, and that western mustards tend to use yellow only or yellow and brown seeds. Something like English mustard is notoriously hot for instance.
      - chmod775 5y ago
        As a German, and I'm probably also speaking for Russians and Chinese here, I'm quite puzzled by this. We consume more than one kind of mustard, one of them being aptly called "Süßer Senf" - sweet mustard[1], which is pretty far from your ordinary mustard in every way. It isn't hot at all, mostly sweet. You wouldn't use it instead of regular mustard (or vice-versa). There's just no way "German mustard" is referring to anything specific enough to start making such comparisons. You'd have to narrow it down to regions of Germany to get anywhere, such as a Bavaria, the origin of sweet mustard. [1]: This likely being the most popular brand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ndlmaier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ndlmaier
        pjmlp 5y ago
        Let me tell you that sweet mustard in Germany is still hot by Portuguese standards. If I gave you spicy Portuguese mustard you would think it was tasteless, by comparison. It took me quite a while to get used to the variants here, as in being able to actually digest them.
  - djmips 5y ago
    I would not consider horseradish and mustard 'spicy'
    - KozmoNau7 5y ago
      Then you haven't had the stuff that really crawls into your nose and sinuses. It's a diffent kind of hot to chili spicyness, but the burn is absolutely there. Or is this some kind of "nothing is too spicy for me" one-upmanship? Spicyness is useless if you don't have flavor to go along with it.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
i was wondering, there is a lot of evidence of pre Columbian contact; the Vikings were in America, the Phoenicians were probably there, the Chinese too, but noone thought of bringing back any tomato seeds. i mean without Columbus, we Europeans would still be eating garum with meat, and that without potato chips, without salad.
- moksly 5y ago
  Scandinavians were in America during the viking period, but there isn’t any evidence that suggest they returned. You have to realise that a lot of the people who went that route weren’t “vikings” as such. Going viking was something you did, but 90% of Scandinavians were just farmers. In fact the reason we are such a homogeneous people here is largely because most farmers even had little contact with the sea-sized settlements that did go Viking. The Scandinavian explorers who headed north from Iceland and eventually ended up in America were likely farmers who had lost their lands for whatever reason, and as such were likely settlers rather than warriors. Many who would have had no intention of ever going back, even if they hadn’t perished. I’m not a big expert on ecology, but I also think that the climate they landed in was basically worse than what they came from. So there probably wasn’t a whole lot of exotic foods to trade, even if they had wanted to.
  - progre 5y ago
    Well, there are the Vinland sagas, and while the events in those are pretty wild, the mere existence of those suggests that some actualy did return. They where recorded sometime between 1220 and 1280 so even though this was well after the fact (about 200 years) it's still before the age of exploration. Edit: As for the tomato question, the sagas suggests that no or very little friendly interaction with the natives took place, so no real trade or exchange of knowledge. These where not full on atlantic voyages but mostly near coastal areas of Greenland and what is now northen Canada. I kinda doubt that the natives would be growing tomatoes that far north anyway. Though, they did claim to find grapes, which suggests that they ventured a fair bit south as well...
- bbarnett 5y ago
  A few of thoughts here. First, we have proof of Viking settlements, but they just seemed to die off completely. It may be that before they really got settled, they were just killed by natives. We don't have actual proof, it seems, of anyone else being here earlier. Outside of that, the tomato, potato, and a lot of other things, aren't native to Canada, or even the US. It's native to Central and South America, which is 4000 or so km in a direct line, and 7000 or 8000km "hugging the coast" travel from where a viking settlement was found on the coast of Canada. So just being in the "new world", won't even remotely put you in contact with everything. On the farming side, no one really understood much about soil management, conditions, crop rotation, fertilizing, drainage, fungus, "growing zones" etc, etc until the 20th century. Often, attempts to transplant crops would fail miserably, by: * placing them in the wrong location (some plants die with too much sun, others with too little) * same as above, but "requires a more southern climate" or "northern climate". Some plants literally cannot grow with short/long day cycles like the far North or South has. * placing a plant in too wet, or too dry soil for its growth requirements. One plant may rot in a certain type of soil (clay/wet/whatever), another thrive Well, there are many points like this. Farmers often knew their specific plants, but it was all guesswork compared to scientifically derived knowledge in the early 20th. So even if a handful of seeds somehow made it back to Europe earlier than Spain getting to the new world and back, there's no promise it would thrive on a first-try. Especially if it was just fishermen, not even interacting with the natives (maybe, earlier contact as you suggest). But beyond all that, superstition! When the tomato was first introduced, it was actually seen as a 'sign of the devil'. It was considered evil, and dangerous to eat. And if you look at corn, for a long time the Brits and much of Europe considered it only suitable as 'pig food'. Most humans wouldn't touch it, and likely this had also to do with taste, for the rural town I grew up had 'cow corn', which is corn hardier, quicker to grow, but not as succulent, or even very tasty (too starchy). Early farmed corn was like this, starchy, and it took centuries to get the human palatable breeds we have now. Natives in the new world used it just for flour, basically, not as a grain to eat on its own. And to speak to that, natives had to process corn in a special way: https://www.spiceography.com/corn-flour/ https://www.spiceography.com/corn-flour/ Otherwise, it severely lacked in nutrition. Yet, Europeans may have just thought it was "tradition" to prepare corn this way... I guess what I'm saying with all of this is, there's a lot of nuance here. Just taking a few seeds won't guarantee growth, or adoption. Erm, another thought: https://storytellergarden.co.uk/vegetables/when-potatoes-were-illegal/ https://storytellergarden.co.uk/vegetables/when-potatoes-wer... Potatoes were seen as deadly in some places and illegal, were seen as horrible in other places (and, people had to trick the commoners into eating them: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/28/prussian-and-the-potato/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/28/prussian-and-the-p... )
throwaway2048 5y ago
heavy use of tomatoes is more typical of Italian-American dishes, although Italy has many differing cuisine traditions and its hard to generalize, they more typically rely on seafood and rice in the south, and butter, cream, cheese and potatoes in the north than they do tomatoes (although pasta and olive oil are unquestionably universals in Italian cooking).
- masklinn 5y ago
  > potatoes Also an american import.
johannes1234321 5y ago
Most "traditional" things in Europe stem from late 19th, early 20th century.
- graeme 5y ago
  Most buildings too for that matter! In the “old” European town centers. There’s much older things about, but the bulk of building was done during the population and tramway explosion circa 1880-1920.
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    Also mind industrialisation, which created work in industrial towns and made it possible to process food in ways which can feed a town.
dghughes 5y ago
Or pasta/noodles for Italy as well. Or if you think of Ireland you think of potatoes. Many types of plant from the Americas (the continent not "USA! USA!") and make up what people eat all over the world; potatoes, peppers, corn, tomatoes, chocolate, peanuts, vanilla.
- whoaisme 5y ago
  It's funny how even with such a harmless comment people feel the need to get in a pointless dig against poor white uneducated Americans (the superpower, not the continent), as if you really had to explain you are talking about the continents and not the ignorant rabble you're so superior to.
- hnhamdani2 5y ago
  pepper is from present-day south east asia. I think you meant Chilli
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    A little broader than that. The entire Capsicum family -- from bell peppers to chili peppers -- was introduced to the Old World during the Columbian exchange. Black pepper is an entirely separate species, and is indeed native to southeast Asia.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      The Indian pepper (black and white) being the original, and the totally unrelated American plant apparently having got the same name in English just because it, too, can be very spicy. It can get rather confusing to people who aren't native English speakers. My guess is, the GP missed the plural -s in your comment, and lacking any other attribute like "bell" or "chili", it's no wonder IMO they thought original Indian black/white pepper was what you were talking about. (It's enough to make you wish English could come up with some other name for the damn things. Come now, she boasts the largest vocabulary of any language -- is there any sensible reason she can't come up with some other name for the paprika fruit than "pepper"?!?)
justnotworthit 5y ago
Think about it too when people (reflexively) tell you not to plant "non-natives". Resources: The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will be Nature's Salvation by Fred Pearce Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration by Tao Orion

by esrh 5y ago

klipt 5y ago

Now imagine Indian food without chilis (also from the New World).

frutiger 5y ago
And European food without potatoes.
nsenifty 5y ago
Many, particularly South Indian dishes are cooked without chili peppers still.

pjmlp 5y ago

Same applies to most spicy food we now eat in Europe, until the discovery age there were no chilli peppers around, even the African ones came from Americas.

KozmoNau7 5y ago
We did have had horseradish and mustard, so not completely devoid of spicyness, but certainly not as pervasive as today.
- ginko 5y ago
  Don't forget pepper.
  - smt88 5y ago
    Native to India, interestingly.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Depends on the region, Portuguese mustard to this day is quite harmless in comparison with its German cousin. But yeah, there were some flavours still.
  - sologoub 5y ago
    Seems the further east the spicer mustard gets - Russian mustard seems to be quite similar to what I tried in Chinese restaurants in US (but a lot thicker, the stuff in Chinese restaurants is runny). By comparison German stuff is much sweater. Horseradish sauces are another matter though!
    - Aengeuad 5y ago
      The east/west distinction probably isn't useful here beyond the observation that black mustard seeds are the hottest followed by brown and then yellow mustard seeds, and that western mustards tend to use yellow only or yellow and brown seeds. Something like English mustard is notoriously hot for instance.
    - chmod775 5y ago
      As a German, and I'm probably also speaking for Russians and Chinese here, I'm quite puzzled by this. We consume more than one kind of mustard, one of them being aptly called "Süßer Senf" - sweet mustard[1], which is pretty far from your ordinary mustard in every way. It isn't hot at all, mostly sweet. You wouldn't use it instead of regular mustard (or vice-versa). There's just no way "German mustard" is referring to anything specific enough to start making such comparisons. You'd have to narrow it down to regions of Germany to get anywhere, such as a Bavaria, the origin of sweet mustard. [1]: This likely being the most popular brand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ndlmaier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ndlmaier
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Let me tell you that sweet mustard in Germany is still hot by Portuguese standards. If I gave you spicy Portuguese mustard you would think it was tasteless, by comparison. It took me quite a while to get used to the variants here, as in being able to actually digest them.
- djmips 5y ago
  I would not consider horseradish and mustard 'spicy'
  - KozmoNau7 5y ago
    Then you haven't had the stuff that really crawls into your nose and sinuses. It's a diffent kind of hot to chili spicyness, but the burn is absolutely there. Or is this some kind of "nothing is too spicy for me" one-upmanship? Spicyness is useless if you don't have flavor to go along with it.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

i was wondering, there is a lot of evidence of pre Columbian contact; the Vikings were in America, the Phoenicians were probably there, the Chinese too, but noone thought of bringing back any tomato seeds. i mean without Columbus, we Europeans would still be eating garum with meat, and that without potato chips, without salad.

moksly 5y ago
Scandinavians were in America during the viking period, but there isn’t any evidence that suggest they returned. You have to realise that a lot of the people who went that route weren’t “vikings” as such. Going viking was something you did, but 90% of Scandinavians were just farmers. In fact the reason we are such a homogeneous people here is largely because most farmers even had little contact with the sea-sized settlements that did go Viking. The Scandinavian explorers who headed north from Iceland and eventually ended up in America were likely farmers who had lost their lands for whatever reason, and as such were likely settlers rather than warriors. Many who would have had no intention of ever going back, even if they hadn’t perished. I’m not a big expert on ecology, but I also think that the climate they landed in was basically worse than what they came from. So there probably wasn’t a whole lot of exotic foods to trade, even if they had wanted to.
- progre 5y ago
  Well, there are the Vinland sagas, and while the events in those are pretty wild, the mere existence of those suggests that some actualy did return. They where recorded sometime between 1220 and 1280 so even though this was well after the fact (about 200 years) it's still before the age of exploration. Edit: As for the tomato question, the sagas suggests that no or very little friendly interaction with the natives took place, so no real trade or exchange of knowledge. These where not full on atlantic voyages but mostly near coastal areas of Greenland and what is now northen Canada. I kinda doubt that the natives would be growing tomatoes that far north anyway. Though, they did claim to find grapes, which suggests that they ventured a fair bit south as well...
bbarnett 5y ago
A few of thoughts here. First, we have proof of Viking settlements, but they just seemed to die off completely. It may be that before they really got settled, they were just killed by natives. We don't have actual proof, it seems, of anyone else being here earlier. Outside of that, the tomato, potato, and a lot of other things, aren't native to Canada, or even the US. It's native to Central and South America, which is 4000 or so km in a direct line, and 7000 or 8000km "hugging the coast" travel from where a viking settlement was found on the coast of Canada. So just being in the "new world", won't even remotely put you in contact with everything. On the farming side, no one really understood much about soil management, conditions, crop rotation, fertilizing, drainage, fungus, "growing zones" etc, etc until the 20th century. Often, attempts to transplant crops would fail miserably, by: * placing them in the wrong location (some plants die with too much sun, others with too little) * same as above, but "requires a more southern climate" or "northern climate". Some plants literally cannot grow with short/long day cycles like the far North or South has. * placing a plant in too wet, or too dry soil for its growth requirements. One plant may rot in a certain type of soil (clay/wet/whatever), another thrive Well, there are many points like this. Farmers often knew their specific plants, but it was all guesswork compared to scientifically derived knowledge in the early 20th. So even if a handful of seeds somehow made it back to Europe earlier than Spain getting to the new world and back, there's no promise it would thrive on a first-try. Especially if it was just fishermen, not even interacting with the natives (maybe, earlier contact as you suggest). But beyond all that, superstition! When the tomato was first introduced, it was actually seen as a 'sign of the devil'. It was considered evil, and dangerous to eat. And if you look at corn, for a long time the Brits and much of Europe considered it only suitable as 'pig food'. Most humans wouldn't touch it, and likely this had also to do with taste, for the rural town I grew up had 'cow corn', which is corn hardier, quicker to grow, but not as succulent, or even very tasty (too starchy). Early farmed corn was like this, starchy, and it took centuries to get the human palatable breeds we have now. Natives in the new world used it just for flour, basically, not as a grain to eat on its own. And to speak to that, natives had to process corn in a special way: https://www.spiceography.com/corn-flour/ https://www.spiceography.com/corn-flour/ Otherwise, it severely lacked in nutrition. Yet, Europeans may have just thought it was "tradition" to prepare corn this way... I guess what I'm saying with all of this is, there's a lot of nuance here. Just taking a few seeds won't guarantee growth, or adoption. Erm, another thought: https://storytellergarden.co.uk/vegetables/when-potatoes-were-illegal/ https://storytellergarden.co.uk/vegetables/when-potatoes-wer... Potatoes were seen as deadly in some places and illegal, were seen as horrible in other places (and, people had to trick the commoners into eating them: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/28/prussian-and-the-potato/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/28/prussian-and-the-p... )

throwaway2048 5y ago

heavy use of tomatoes is more typical of Italian-American dishes, although Italy has many differing cuisine traditions and its hard to generalize, they more typically rely on seafood and rice in the south, and butter, cream, cheese and potatoes in the north than they do tomatoes (although pasta and olive oil are unquestionably universals in Italian cooking).

masklinn 5y ago
> potatoes Also an american import.

johannes1234321 5y ago

Most "traditional" things in Europe stem from late 19th, early 20th century.

graeme 5y ago
Most buildings too for that matter! In the “old” European town centers. There’s much older things about, but the bulk of building was done during the population and tramway explosion circa 1880-1920.
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  Also mind industrialisation, which created work in industrial towns and made it possible to process food in ways which can feed a town.

dghughes 5y ago

Or pasta/noodles for Italy as well. Or if you think of Ireland you think of potatoes. Many types of plant from the Americas (the continent not "USA! USA!") and make up what people eat all over the world; potatoes, peppers, corn, tomatoes, chocolate, peanuts, vanilla.

whoaisme 5y ago
It's funny how even with such a harmless comment people feel the need to get in a pointless dig against poor white uneducated Americans (the superpower, not the continent), as if you really had to explain you are talking about the continents and not the ignorant rabble you're so superior to.
hnhamdani2 5y ago
pepper is from present-day south east asia. I think you meant Chilli
- duskwuff 5y ago
  A little broader than that. The entire Capsicum family -- from bell peppers to chili peppers -- was introduced to the Old World during the Columbian exchange. Black pepper is an entirely separate species, and is indeed native to southeast Asia.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    The Indian pepper (black and white) being the original, and the totally unrelated American plant apparently having got the same name in English just because it, too, can be very spicy. It can get rather confusing to people who aren't native English speakers. My guess is, the GP missed the plural -s in your comment, and lacking any other attribute like "bell" or "chili", it's no wonder IMO they thought original Indian black/white pepper was what you were talking about. (It's enough to make you wish English could come up with some other name for the damn things. Come now, she boasts the largest vocabulary of any language -- is there any sensible reason she can't come up with some other name for the paprika fruit than "pepper"?!?)

justnotworthit 5y ago

Think about it too when people (reflexively) tell you not to plant "non-natives". Resources: The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will be Nature's Salvation by Fred Pearce Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration by Tao Orion