Columbus was no Locavore

Potatoes!

Imagine daily life without the following:

• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Corn
• Bananas
• Pineapples
• Lima beans
• Tea
• Chocolate (Oh No!)

The pre-Columbian medieval European diet would not have included any of these things. 

Columbus may have failed as a navigator (nor was he much of a humanitarian), but his career was the model and route for much of what came after. 

There were many consequences of the cross cultural exchange between Europe and the Americas, but let's leave aside war, disease and the total disregard for human rights and focus on food, shall we? The introduction of New World crops to Old World agrarian society meant higher yield crops could be produced on smaller parcels of land. Not nearly so many people would go to bed hungry, and the increased variety of foods meant more nutritional bang for their buck as well.

Isn't it interesting how we've kind of come full circle (because the world isn't flat)? Now one of the biggest trends in food is the grow/buy/eat local movement. 500 odd years later we've discovered the impact of the globalization that we can attribute -at least in part - to Columbus continues to have consequences, both positive and negative.

I am grateful to live on the land where potatoes, corn, tomatoes and squashes of all sorts are native delicacies, but I am just as grateful that I also have access to pineapples, bananas and chocolate that I would never be able to grow in my own backyard.

What food would you cross the world to get?