The point, by the way, is that foods--and animals not used for food, and ideas, and technology, and diseases--traveled in both directions across the Atlantic after Europeans started showing up and coming back. This is often called the Columbian Exchange, after Columbus but most of it happened well after his life time. He died in 1506, just fourteen years after his first voyage.
Here are the other two categories, all filled in.
Foods Unfamiliar to the First Europeans
amaranth, avocado, cocoa (chocolate), corn, manioc (cassava), papaya, peanut, peppers, pineapple, potato, quinoa, sunflower, sweet potato, tomato, vanilla
Foods Imported from Africa in the Early Colonial Period
black-eyed peas, eggplant, okra, rice, sesame seeds, sorghum, watermelon, yam
A few notes of explanation:
- amaranth is cooked like a grain and can be found at Whole Foods and other alt-grocery stores; it was developed in the highlands of Mexico and Central America
- most Americans see manioc (cassava) in the form of tapioca
- quinoa is cooked like a grain and can now be found at nearly all grocery stores; it was developed in the Lake Titicaca region of South America and is related to amaranth
- sweet potatoes originated in the Caribbean region; they are not the same thing as yams, a distinct species from Africa
- imagine Italian food without tomato sauce; that's all of it before the early 1500s
- sorghum is found on grocery shelves in America as molasses, but this grain is used in many parts of the world for both human and livestock consumption
- okra shows up in Southern cooking (which is true of the other African imports as well); you'll find okra sliced into rounds in gumbo, but it is also served on its own--sliced, dipped in egg and cornmeal, and fried; you might also find it pickled in jars on the shelves next to the more familiar cucumber pickles
Thank you!
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