The Globalization of Food & Plants

   
 

Food:

 

Where did it come from?

   
   
   
   
   
   

Take a look at your evening meal and what do you see? Common foods that are so much a part of daily sustenance you would hardly suspect that they originally came from another country. But it is true.

Most of the foods that we commonly eat today are the product of globalization. And often a globalization that began centuries before the term came into use. Next time you eat one of the foods highlighted in the following articles imagine what life would be like if that food had never left its home country.

Please click on the links below to learn about the various foods that have made a significant impact in our life today.

 


 

Spices

 

The quest for spices helped pave the way for

  colonialism and global empires.
   
   

 


 

The Potato

 

From a wild tuber to the french fry, the potato has

  withstood the test of time and traveled the world.
   
   

 


 

Coffee

 

First thing in the morning or after dinner, would

  life be as bright if coffee had never left Ethiopia?
   
   

 


 

The Tomato

 

Pizza, salsa, rogan josh, and ketchup: the tomato

  has adapted to every cuisine and continues to please.
   
   

 


 

Tea

 

That cup of steaming tea in your hand has traveled a

  long way. The twists and turns taken by tea parallel
 

the early processes of globalization.

   

 


 

Chili

 

The chili pepper has been with many cultures for so

  long, over five hundred years to be exact.
   
   

 


 

Tobacco

 

Cultivated in the Americas long before discovery

  by Europeans, tobacco spread around the world with
  its true nature in disguise.