In today’s world, it’s not surprising for a family to eat spaghetti bolognese one day, wonton soup on the next, and finish off the week with a traditional English Sunday roast. Thanks to our globally connected society, we can not only check out recipes from all over the globe but we can also buy pretty much every ingredient needed to cook them. But things weren’t always the same.
Back in the day, foods were highly specific for their locations – while recipes and ingredients, especially spices, did spread across the world, their spread was very slow compared to what we see today. Each country, each region had a few specific ingredients and very specific recipes – national dishes, if you please. Traditions go a long way, after all. You can trace back the origins of Italian pasta to the Etruscan civilization that lived there as early as 900 BC, and the origins of the bagel hole to a small Polish village with a smart rabbi.
In the age of exploration, in turn, these peoples were introduced to brand new ingredients. And they embraced them, adopted them, and turned these “imported” foods into their national dishes.
Peppers
Peppers are native to North America, growing in the wild in central Mexico to this day. The Spanish were the first to introduce them to Europe in the 16th century – today, they are consumed in one form or another pretty much everywhere in the world.
Peppers were introduced to Hungary around the same time it has spread all over Europe. The fruits were dried, milled into a powder, and used as a spice – prominently so by the Hungarian people. So much so that they even gave us the common name for the spice that’s used in most parts of the world.
Fun fact: paprika was originally made from hot peppers. The sweet variety was invented by a breeder in Szeged, Hungary, in the 1920s. To this day, the spice coming from Szeged is considered one of the best in the world.
Potatoes
Another food coming from the Americas – this time from the South. Potatoes were domesticated around 10,000 years ago by a civilization living in modern-day Peru and Bolivia and reached the European shores in the 16th century. It quickly became a staple food in the Old World, especially in Ireland, where it also became the main ingredient for several national dishes.
Potatoes are the main ingredient in the famous Irish stew, the boxty (a traditional potato pancake), and the colcannon (mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage).
Fun fact: the fruit of the potato plant – similar to a cherry tomato – is poisonous. Thus, for almost two centuries, they were only grown as ornamental plants in Europe.
Corn
Finally, let’s not forget about one of the most important plants in human history: corn. The plant as we know it has first emerged in southern Mexico around 9,000 years ago, then it spread across the Americas before crossing the ocean into Europe in the early 16th century. And from there, all over the world.
At least two countries have adopted corn – or better said cornmeal, the fine yellow grist it is milled into – as their national dishes: Italy and Romania. Both the Italian polenta and the Romanian mămăligă were traditional local dishes made of other grains – buckwheat, millet, or einkorn. With the arrival of corn, both nations made the switch, turning their boring, white porridges into beautiful, golden yellow ones.
Fun fact: Hun Hunahpu, the maize god, was one of the most important deities of the Mayan culture. They believed that he is decapitated at the beginning of each harvest, and reborn when the next growing season begins.