Food Origins- Add Yours To The List

Discussion in 'Food & Drinks' started by Ted Richards, Oct 23, 2017.

  1. Ted Richards

    Ted Richards Veteran Member
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    #1
  2. Mike Dobra

    Mike Dobra Veteran Member
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    Durum Wheat
    Originally from eastern Europe, grown in the middle east, Europe and the USA. Pasta, macaroni spaghetti and in cakes.
     
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  3. Krissttina Isobe

    Krissttina Isobe Veteran Member
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    MMM love marinara sauce with lots of hamburger with my spaghetti. Thanks so much South America for tomatoes! I am too lazy for meatballs, so I squash my hamburger for a meaty sauce with my marinara sauce for my spaghetti. With cheese bread or Texan Toast, splash of Parmesan Cheese and a wonderful meal is being able to be eaten. Hmm, getting hungry. Thanks for the information, learned something!
     
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  4. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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    A Brief History of the Sweet Potato


    When the Spanish explorers first came to the New World they were searching for an ocean route to India and its fabled treasures of gold, silver, spices and jewels. They found them on these two new continents, North and South America, but they found many other things far more valuable, including three of the world' s most important food plants: corn, the white or Irish potato, and the sweet potato.

    Being a tropical plant, the sweet potato probably was found before the Irish potato -- by Columbus in the West Indies, by Balboa in Central America, and by Pizarro in Peru. Like corn, it was not found growing wild, but it had been cultivated by the Incan and pre-Incan[​IMG] races for thousands of years. They had developed many varieties, as is shown by their ancient pottery. In most places in Latin America, the sweet potato is called "camote", but the Incans called it "batata" and that is apparently the origin of our word "potato".

    The sweet potato was carried back to Spain and thence to Italy, from where it spread to Austria, Germany, Belgium and England before the first Irish potatoes arrived. It took 200 years for the English to accept Irish potatoes as being fit for human food, but the sweet potato immediately became a rare and expensive delicacy. Now it is widely grown in Asiatic lands, including Japan and southern Russia, in the warmer Pacific islands, in tropical America, and in the United States as far north as New Jersey.

    Outside of the tropics, sweet potatoes thrive only in the warmer temperate climates, and do best in a loose sandy soil that is well drained. They produce seed only in the tropical climates. In northern climates, new plants are obtained by planting roots, or cuttings of the vines, in beds. The sprouts that form are pulled and transplanted to fields one sprout to a "hill". Once well started, they require little moisture and, unless attacked by the numerous diseases and insect pests to which they are subject, develop many potatoes in each hill.

    Sweet potatoes produce more pounds of food per acre than any other cultivated plant, including corn and the Irish potato. More nourishing than Irish potatoes because they contain more sugars and fats, they are a universal food in tropical America, and in our southern states where they are baked, candied, boiled and even fried. Vast quantities are canned for consumption in the United States. Of the 200 or more varieties there are two main types. The "Jersey" and related varieties having dry mealy flesh are favored in the northern states. The other type, more watery but richer in sugar and more soft and gelatinous when cooked, is favored in our southern states where they are called "yams". The true yam, however, originated in China and is a different plant related to the lilies. The Irish potato, believe it or not, belongs to the Nighshade Family.

    The sweet potato botanically, belongs to the Morning Glory family. There is another member of this family, a native weed known in Illinois and Indiana as "wild potato vine", "wild sweet potato" or "man-of-the-earth", with an enormous fleshy root much esteemed as food by the Indians. Above ground, the sweet potato develops creeping twining vines with pink or purple blossoms like those of the morning glory. Its thick starchy roots develop into the tubers we call "sweet potatoes". These contain carotene, the chemical which produces the orange colors in autumn leaves and in carrots. The Indians in Latin America make a beautiful permanent red dye from the mixed juices of limes and sweet potatoes.[​IMG]
     
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  5. Ted Richards

    Ted Richards Veteran Member
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    Potato
    The potato, from the perennial Solanum tuberosum, is the world’s fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C.

    In 1536 Spanish Conquistadors conquered Peru, discovered the flavors of the potato, and carried them to Europe. Before the end of the sixteenth century, families of Basque sailors began to cultivate potatoes along the Biscay coast of northern Spain. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced potatoes to Ireland in 1589 on the 40,000 acres of land near Cork. It took nearly four decades for the potato to spread to the rest of Europe.

    Eventually, agriculturalists in Europe found potatoes easier to grow and cultivate than other staple crops, such as wheat and oats. Most importantly, it became known that potatoes contained most of the vitamins needed for sustenance, and they could be provided to nearly 10 people for each acre of land cultivated.

    In the 1840s a major outbreak of potato blight, a plant disease, swept through Europe, wiping out the potato crop in many countries. The Irish working class lived largely on potatoes and when the blight reached Ireland, their main staple food disappeared. This famine left many poverty-stricken families with no choice but to struggle to survive or emigrate out of Ireland. Over the course of the famine, almost one million people died from starvation or disease. Another one million people left Ireland, mostly for Canada and the United States.
     
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  6. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    Bohemian dumplings, originated in my Mother's kitchen before I was born. Basically made from flour, bread crumbs, perhaps an egg, little else, unless baseball-like hardness is not desired, a bit of baking soda added, mix these ingredients until no more flour may be added without breaking your wrist trying, take up into apple-sized blobs, drop into boiling water. Cook until they no longer stick to an inserted fork, or will successfully bounce off the wall when heartily there thrown against.

    Bohemian dumplings are served in several ways. Generally, they are cut into eatable-sized pieces on the devourer's plate, then they may be covered over with:
    1) sweet-sour cabbage followed by gravy
    2) dry cottage cheese followed by melted butter and optionally cooked fruit such as peaches or apricots
    3) sauerkraut, the favorite, drenched with roast pork drippin's

    The last is probably the commonest. Dumplings are served with the meat having originated the gravy, of course. No "Big-Time" meal in our house, meaning Sunday, or Holiday, was ever conducted without the presence of dumplings. Afterwards, next day (no human beings could possibly consume a full pot-full initially), my Mother took one, cut it into almond-sized chunks, fried them up on butter hot, threw in an egg or two, possibly some cut-up onion, and I left for school with a belly-full of "Dumplings & Eggs", one of the tastiest breakfasts I can recollect from my childhood.

    Finally, Dumplings were made by many other modes, but not in our house. My Grandma preferred "raised dumplings", which used yeast in the dough, came out light & fluffy, seemingly more able to soak up the fatty juices exposed to them. They WERE delicious, make no mistake! But we seemed to remain dedicated to our "baseballs".
    Frank
     
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