Food origins play a role in nutrition and sustainability as foods with common geological origins have a greater tendency to survive and be valued by the locals. Importance in food therapy is also involved, as allergies to certain foods can be attributed to race. In this way it's a part of the local food movement. An example would be lactose intolerance among Polynesians and Native Americans who were not accustomed to breeding cattle as much as Europeans. Combined with seasonal cooking, food origins can be used in predicting the tendency of ingredients to work well together, like wine and cheese or rice and tofu. Some foods have a tendency to develop with predominant civilizations like Chinese herbs in Asia and fertile crescent agriculture in the middle east. Many culinary fruits have global origins, especially berries, more so than vegetables. Fowl are also common on many different continents, like geese and ducks. Different variations of vegetables can be found on different continents, like yams in Africa and Potatoes in South America. Another example would be walnuts in Europe and pecans in North America.
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Corn, beans and squash were domesticated in Mesoamerica around 3500 BCE. Potatoes and manioc were domesticated in South America. In what is now the eastern United States, Native Americans domesticated sunflower, sumpweed and goosefoot around 2500 BCE.[1]
| Cereals | Maize (corn), maygrass, and little barley |
|---|---|
| Pseudocereals | Amaranth, quinoa, erect knotweed, sumpweed, and sunflowers |
| Pulses | Common beans, tepary beans, scarlet runner beans, lima beans, and peanuts |
| Fiber | Cotton, yucca, and agave |
| Roots and Tubers | Jicama, manioc (cassava), potatoes, sweet potatoes, oca, mashua, ulloco, arrowroot, yacon, leren, and groundnuts |
| Fruits | Tomatoes, chili peppers, avocados, cranberries, blueberries, huckleberries, cherimoyas, papayas, pawpaws, passionfruits, pineapples and strawberries |
| Melons | Squashes |
| Meat and poultry | turkey, bison, muscovy ducks, dogs and guinea pigs |
| Nuts | Peanuts, black walnuts, shagbark hickory, pecans and hickory nuts |
| Other | Chocolate, Canna, tobacco, Chicle, rubber, maple syrup, birch syrup and vanilla |
| Date | Crops | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 7000BC | Maize | Central America |
| 5000BC | Cotton | Mexico |
| 4800BC | Squash Chili Peppers Avocados Amaranth |
Mexico |
| 4000BC | Maize Common Bean |
Central America |
| 4000BC | Ground Nut | South America |
| 2000BC | Sunflowers Beans |
Canada, Mexico, and the United States are home to a surprising number of edible plants; however, only three are commercially grown/known on a global scale (grapes, cranberries, and blueberries.) Many of the fruits below are still eaten locally as they have been for centuries and others are generating renewed interest by eco-friendly gardeners (less need for bug control) and chefs alike.
Provisionally, this is primarily southern Coast Salish, though much is in common with Coast Salish overall.
Anthropogenic grasslands were maintained. The south Coast Salish may have had more vegetables and land game than people farther north or on the outer coast. Salmon and other fish were staples in this area. There was kakanee, a freshwater fish in the Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish watersheds. Shellfish were abundant. Butter clams, horse clams, and cockles were dried for trade.
Hunting was specialized; professions were probably sea hunters, land hunters, fowlers. Water fowl were captured on moonless nights using strategic flares.
The managed grasslands not only provided game habitat, but vegetable sprouts, roots, bulbs, berries, and nuts were foraged from them as well as found wild. The most important were probably bracken and camas; wapato especially for the Duwamish. Many, many varieties of berries were foraged; some were harvested with comblike devices not reportedly used elsewhere. Acorns were relished but were not widely available. Regional tribes went in autumn to the Nisqually Flats (Nisqually plains) to harvest them.[5] Indeed, the region was so abundant that the southern Puget Sound as a whole had one of the only sedentary hunter-gatherer societies that has ever existed.
There was a great deal of commerce between the provinces of the Roman Empire, all the regions of the empire became interdependent with one another, some provinces specialized in the production of grain, others in wine and others in olive oil, depending on the soil type. Columella writes in his Res Rustica, “Soil that is heavy, chalky, and wet is not unsuited to the growing for winter wheat and spelt. Barley tolerates no place except one that is loose and dry.”[6] Pliny the Elder writes extensively about agriculture from books XII to XIX, in fact XVIII is The Natural History of Grain. [2] Some crops grown on Roman farms include wheat, barley, millet, pea, broad bean, lentil, flax, sesame, chickpea, hemp, turnip, olives, pear, apples, figs, and plums. Others in the Mediterranean include:
Fruits in this category are not hardy to extreme cold, as the preceding temperate fruits are, yet tolerate some frost and may have a modest chilling requirement. Notable among these are natives of the Mediterranean:
The Minoans raised cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats, and grew wheat, barley, vetch, and chickpeas, they also cultivated grapes, figs, and olives, and grew poppies, for poppy seed and perhaps opium. The Minoans domesticated bees, and adopted pomegranates and quinces from the Near East. They developed Mediterranean polyculture.[7] There's also evidence of orchard farming (i.e., figs, olives and grapes).[8]
The first instances of domestication of plants for agricultural purposes in Africa occurred in the Sahel region circa 5000 BCE, when sorghum and African Rice (Oryza glaberrima) began to be cultivated. Around this time, and in the same region, the small Guineafowl were domesticated.
Around 4000 BCE the climate of the Sahara and the Sahel started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink rather significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more humid climate of West Africa.[9]
The most famous crop domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands is coffee. In addition, khat, ensete, noog, teff and finger millet were also domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands. Crops domesticated in the Sahel region include sorghum and pearl millet. The Kola nut, extracts from which became an ingredient in Coca Cola, was first domesticated in West Africa. Other crops domesticated in West Africa include African rice, African yams, black-eyed peas and the oil palm.[1]
The Neolithic founder crops (or primary domesticates) are the eight plant species that were domesticated by early Holocene (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region of southwest Asia, and which formed the basis of systematic agriculture in the Middle East, North Africa, India, Persia and (later) Europe. They consist of flax, three cereals and four pulses, and are the first known domesticated plants in the world. Although domesticated rye (Secale cereale) occurs in the final Epi-Palaeolithic strata at Tell Abu Hureyra (the earliest instance of a domesticated plant species), it was an insignificant in the Neolithic Period of southwest Asia and only became common with the spread of farming into northern Europe several millennia later.
Tibetan plateau
Some fruits native to Asia or of Asian Origin.
Around 7000 BC, sesame, eggplant, and humped cattle had been domesticated in the Indus Valley.[10] By 3000 BC, turmeric, cardamom, black pepper and mustard were harvested in India.[11]
Although the fruits of Australia were eaten for thousands of years as bushfood by Aboriginal people, they have only been recently recognized for their culinary qualities by non-indigenous people. Many are regarded for their piquancy and spice-like qualities for use in cooking and preserves. Some Australian fruits also have exceptional nutritional qualities, including high vitamin C and other antioxidants.