The history in your dish

Living in the modern 21st century, has made us take many things we have nowadays for granted. Almost every kind of first necessity products can be found on the store across the street, and for the most demanding cravings, products from all over the world can be found in specialty stores in almost every country: it is the globalized era in which borders have become diffuse. Twenty years ago, buying an import in a country like my own, apart of being considered a complete luxury, would have been unaffordable. Probably the best way to depict this is to talk about the food we see in our tables everyday. Which of the many things we eat on a daily basis has been part of our culture for a long time?
Did you ever imagine that before the sixteenth century (and probably much later), chocolate was unknown in Europe? Or could you even think that ancient American cultures did not have red meat as part of their daily diet? (In the case of Mexican natives, they did not even know the horse).
During the whole first half of the fifteenth century, many European scientists and explorers looked for different ways of sailing to the Indies in order to find an easy way to bring spices into their countries. Spices played a very important role in those years, when perishable food had to be spiced and salted in order to be preserved during summer and warm months. This fact however, turned into a much more lucrative enterprise than spice trading: the first explorations of the unknown lands of America financed mainly by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, later on the British started their own explorations, with the settlement of the Spanish in the Island of Cuba, it was possible to expand towards continental America, and on August 13th, 1521, the great Aztec empire was officially defeated and taken over by the Spanish Crown. During those years, Spanish explorations towards the Pacific Ocean were done, and the actual Philippines were annexed to the Spanish Empire.

In 1535, the Spanish administration of Charles V, sent a Viceroy to organize the ever growing production of his colonies, establishing the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Actual Mexico, Central America, and The Philippines), the Viceroyalty of Peru (Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela), and the Viceroyalty of La Plata (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile). Later on, Peru and New Spain were divided, and Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador became the Viceroyalty of New Granada.

The establishment of Viceroyalties did not only become the best way of pulling the mineral goods out of America, but also starting the exchange of new products between America and Asia, and Spain (which later sold goods to other European countries without American possessions). It can be therefore said that this fact set the preliminaries of globalization and international trade.
British, Spanish, Portuguese, and much later the Dutch sailors became famous for bringing wealth and exotic goods to the old lands: maize, tomato, pumpkin, nuts, maple, cotton, squash, peppers, bean, sunflower, peanut, avocado, potato, chocolate, sugar cane, tobacco, and chicle (the predecessor of modern chewing gum) along with unknown fowl species, such as turkey, were among the many new products in Europe. In exchange, horses and cattle were brought in addition to the modernity of the old continent into the Americas, the later, only used in most of the cases by the European families that settled there in search of new fortune.

Among the many examples, there is the one of the actual tomato which did not exist in Europe until the 1600’s, the name comes from the ancient Mexican language called Náhuatl: xitómatl which means round plump fruit with navel, other mutations of the original yellow fruit, much similar to the larger tomatoes of nowadays were found in Central America. The name “jitomate”, which is still used in Mexico for the red tomato, later evolved into tomate. Spanish distributed tomato in Asia, and Europe, where its cultivation became successful on Mediterranean weathers. In Italy, the early American tomatoes were named pomodoro (Golden Apple), because of their golden color, and it was the Italian monks of Naples who hold the honour of having written the first recipe that contains tomato. Currently, China, U.S., and Turkey are the top three producers of Tomato in the world. Avocado, shares a similar history too, curiously, avocado’s name in Spanish is aguacate, which derives from the Náhuatl word ahuácatl that stands for testicle.

Chocolate as we know it has nothing to do with the chocolate consumed by the prehispanic cultures of America. Almost every pre-Columbian culture prepared Cacao infusions with religious and medicinal purpuses. The Xocoatl (bitter water), as the Aztecs called it, was a drink prepared with Cacao, and was taken spicy and hot by the nobles. Cacao was also used by the Aztecs as a currency, and its value was much higher than gold. Chocolate later was exported into Europe, and became the beverage of choice of the courts. Cacao harvesting later became a very profitable activity, in which field workers were overslaved in order to enhance the production. African workforce was also used in the Cacao fields. The popularity of the drink grew through the years, and in 1689, Doctor Hans Sloan in Jamaica developed a medicinal chocolate drink which contained milk. Chocolate treats of today are a result of the first industrial revolution, in which the use of heat and machines facilitated the production of tablets.
Chicle, which is the Spanish word for chewing gum, derives from the Hule tree from Central America. It was a resin that was chewed by the natives to clean the teeth. This later was flavoured and industrialized in favour of the sugared gum. Modern gums however do not contain chicle.

The introduction of cattle in America is also a result of this trade. Hoofed animals were not domesticated by the ancient American tribes, and it is said that when the conquistadors arrived to Mexico City, Aztecs acknowledged them as gods because of a prophecy that said that their main deity whose skin was whiter than theirs, would be back riding a four legged beast, which shows that Aztecs did not know horses before the Spanish settlements.

Coffee was grown firstly in Ethiopia during the 9th century, and later, its production spread to Egypt where it became famous in the Muslim World. The next to try it were the Italian, and from there it found its way through Europe, Indonesia, and America. Marihuana was first planted in the Middle East; aniseed, macadamia, and eucalyptus come from the South Pacific; and peach, plums, rhubarb, kiwifruit and coconuts, are original from the Far East.

Whatever it is we are having for dinner, it is not probably from our homelands. The fact that we are able to have it fresh, and sold on a store just around the corner, is a result of history and technological developments. Countries that do not have the soil or climatic conditions for growing several products would become world number one producers, while the product’s birthplace does not even remember they used to produce it. Those are the tricks this fast growing world plays on everyone.