Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR:
The History of the Banana
https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom
Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea.
If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite end of spectrum of TikTok, etc. Also, don't watch his "History of Sugar" documentary if you are feeling depressed. Instead watch the "History of Curry".
If you like this long format style of video, you might enjoy Asianometry, "video essays on business, economics, and history." [0] Here is a video on the banana also, "The Wildly Infectious Banana Plague." [1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsiD_s00RQ
Asianometry is one of the rare gems among youtube channels, along with Alexander the ok [0] and Technology Connections [1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@Alexander-the-ok
[1] https://www.youtube.com/technologyconnections
I'll second this. I'm continually impressed with the breadth of coverage from Asianometry. Great channel.
I wish Jon would post a video on his research methodology.
My favorite is the history of chili pepper. It's something so fundamental to indian cuisine that I assumed chillies were native to India for a long time. His video shows the true history of how that spice travelled from the Americas to all over the globe
Potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins/zucchinis/most squashes, cassava, the common bean (including pinto, black, kidney, etc), cassava, sunflowers, avocado, etc all didn't exist in European kitchens until the 1500s (and not really widespread until at least the 1600s).
Also, most of these crops were specifically domesticated in the Andes. If you go to the Andes today you can still find traditional potato farmers who take care of hundreds of varieties of potatoes of all different shapes and colors. Some are ornamental, some are edible raw, some are only used in soup, some are even used medicinally
Maybe surprising is that there are no native species of banana to "the New World" despite there being about 100 species and thousands of named cultivars.
Coffee is another interesting example in the other direction, it's so often associated with places like Colombia, Java, etc that people don't realize it's only native to Ethiopia, and that the majority of coffee consumed around the world today descends from one specific genetic lineage that was cultivated for a few centuries in Yemen.
Erstwhile seafaring powers went to war over trade routes for these. Surprising it isn't that well known.
Most of that I knew, but I was surprised at the beans. I thought beans were a standard medieval fare.
It turned out that these were fava beans, which stem from the Old World.
Have you read Charles C. Mann's book "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created"? It's all about the global impact of the opening of the New World by the Europeans, and how the global exchange created and is creating the "homogenocene", the age of homogeneity. There's a part about a folk song in the Philippines that lovingly goes over the crops being grown around a village. They're all introduced.
It really transformed Europe too. Europe's basically a story of famine after famine until they got access to the potato. I don't know if any other technology has saved as many European lives as the potato
Pacific island cultures are a bit unique in their relationship to the New World though. Chickens which come from SE Asian jungles have been in South America since at least 1300 AD. And sweet potatoes were grown in Polynesia around 1000 AD.
1300 AD?! Did the Polynesians bring chickens with them? I knew about the sweet potatoes, but the chickens are a whole different manner.
Chickens descend from jungle fowl, which were carried out into the Pacific from SE Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_junglefowl
Yes exactly. We have chicken remains in Chile that are dated between 1304 and 1424. And we even have DNA confirmation from those bones that link them to modern Polynesian chicken populations. The tailless, blue-egged Araucana breed is still around today and is thought to predate Columbus
Ask a 5yr old. They've watched Moana a dozen times and can name a chicken character.
His other book, "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus"¹ is also excellent.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_A...
When my Korean friends tell me that my cuisine isn't spicy enough: Well... let's talk about that spice.
Didn't expect to see this on HN, but it's definitely one of my favorite YouTube channels. Most food history content online feels like straight up readings from Wikipedia, but OTR does actual research and interviews. The Golden Triangle episode where they interviewed the anti-CCP rebel veteran who was like 90 years old was pretty neat. Doesn't sound like it'd tie into food, but it does.
Sugarcane is also thought to be originally from New Guinea, although it spread widely in prehistory.