Sharing Our Differences;
Learning From Each Other

Over the centuries, as people migrated from place to place, conquered new territories, and opened new trade routes, they took food crops with them spreading them from their land of origin to other areas. By the time Columbus set sail in 1492, Southern Spain grew rice and oranges that had been introduced and popularized by Arab invaders. Northern Europeans planted peas and oats that had come along with the expansion of the Roman Empire. East Africans ate mangos and eggplants carried by Persian voyagers. And across the Atlantic, North American Indians farmed corn, beans, and squash which had been domesticated thousands of miles to the south.

Although many food plants had traveled halfway around the globe by 1492, not one food crop had crossed the Atlantic Ocean. That is why 1492 is such a crucial date in the history of the world's food supply: Columbus' voyages initiated the interchange of plants between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, which in effect doubled the food crop resources available to peoples on both sides of the Atlantic. As Thomas Jefferson noted: "The greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture..." [The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, 1900 as quoted in Crosby's "the Columbian Voyages, the Columbian Exchange, and Their Historians]

Impressed by the novelty and abundance of New World crops, Columbus and explorers who followed him brought samples from the Americas back to the Old World. Today, tomatoes are a basic food in the Mediterranean, as chili peppers are in many parts of Asia. Pineapples flourish in the Pacific, while avocados thrive in Kenya and Israel. In Egypt, street vendors sell roasted ears of corn and sweet potatoes are snack foods in Japan.

Explorers and colonizers from the Old World added to the New World cornucopia by bringing seeds and cuttings of familiar crops with them to the Americas. The wheat fields of Nebraska and Saskatchewan, the coffee plantations of Columbia and Costa Rica, the rice fields of Louisiana and Texas, the vineyards of California and Chile, and the orange groves of Florida and Mexico have their origins in the Old World.

The activities in this section illustrate the Old World and New World origins of the foods we eat and the impact Columbus' voyages had on the diets, cuisines, and ethnic make-up of our world today.

Menu 1492
The Slave Ship
What's it Worth to You?
Heritage Banner or Quilt
T-Shirt Story Telling
Bread Retablo
Is That a Fact?
Food Legends
Garden Logo
Time Capsule
Class Cookbook
Cultural Borrowings
Let Them Eat Bread
To Market, To Market