List of food origins

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Some foods have always been common in every continent, such as many seafood and plants. Examples of these are honey, ants, mussels, crabs and coconuts. Nikolai Vavilov initially identified the centers of origin for eight crop plants, subdividing them further into twelve groups in 1935.^[1]

Africa[]

West Africa[]

Many foods were originally domesticated in West Africa, including grains like African rice, Pearl Millet, Sorghum, and Fonio; tree crops like Kola nut, used in Coca-Cola, and Oil Palm; and other globally important plant foods such as Watermelon, Okra, Black-eye peas, and Yams.^[2] Additionally, the regionally important poultry animal Guinea Fowl was domesticated in West Africa. Some of these crops were domesticated at least 4,500 years ago.^[3]

Around 4000 BCE the climate of the Sahara and the Sahel started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing desertification, potentially reducing the wild food supply and spurring people to domesticate plant crops.^[2] This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more humid climate of West Africa.^[4]

Ethiopian Highlands[]

The most famous crop domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands is coffee. Khat, ensete, noog, teff and finger millet were also domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands.

Americas[]

Corn, beans and squash were domesticated in Mesoamerica around 3500 BCE. Potatoes, quinoa and manioc were domesticated in South America. In what is now the eastern United States, Native Americans domesticated sunflower and sumpweed around 2500 BCE.^[5]

Ancient American crops^[6]

Cereals	Maize (corn), maygrass, and little barley
Pseudocereals	Amaranth, quinoa, erect knotweed, sumpweed, and sunflowers
Pulses	Common beans, tepary beans, scarlet runner beans, lima beans, and peanuts
Fiber	Mexican cotton, yucca, and agave
Roots and tubers	Jicama, manioc (cassava), potatoes, sweet potatoes, sunchokes, oca, mashua, ulloco, arrowroot, yacon, leren, and groundnuts
Fruits	Tomatoes, chili peppers, avocados, cranberries, black raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, elderberries, huckleberries, cherimoyas, papayas, pawpaws, passionfruit, pineapples, red raspberries, soursops and strawberries
Melons	Squashes
Meat and poultry	Turkey, bison, muscovy ducks, and guinea pigs
Nuts	Peanut, black walnuts, shagbark hickory, pecans, hickory nuts, acorns from oak trees, pinion pine nuts, cashew nuts
Other	Chocolate, canna, tobacco, chicle, rubber, maple syrup, birch syrup and vanilla

Timeline of American crop cultivation^[7]

Date	Crops	Location
7000 BCE	Maize	Mexico
5000 BCE	Cotton	Mexico
4800 BCE	Squash Chili peppers Avocados Amaranth	Mexico
4000 BCE	Maize Common bean	Mexico
4000 BCE	Ground nut	South America
2000 BCE	Sunflowers Beans

North America[]

Nuts[]

• Acorn (Quercus alba, Quercus gambelii, Quercus kelloggii, Notholithocarpus densiflorus; Fagaceae)
• American chestnut (Castanea dentata; Fagaceae)
• Black walnut (Juglans nigra; Juglandaceae)
• Hazelnut (Corylus americana; Corylaceae)
• Hickory nut (Carya; Juglandaceae)
• Pecans (Carya illinoinensis; Juglandaceae)
• Shagbark hickory (; Juglandaceae)
• White walnut (Juglans cinerea; Juglandaceae)

Vegetables and grains[]

Fruits[]

Canada, Mexico, and the United States are home to a number of edible fruit; however, only three are commercially grown (grapes, cranberries, and blueberries). Many of the fruits below are still eaten locally as they have been for centuries and others are generating renewed interest by eco-friendly gardeners (less need for bug control) and chefs alike.

Pacific Northwest[]

Provisionally, this is primarily southern Coast Salish, though much is in common with Coast Salish overall.

Anthropogenic grasslands were maintained. The south Coast Salish may have had more vegetables and land game than people farther north or on the outer coast. Salmon and other fish were staples in this area. There was kokanee, a freshwater fish in the Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish watersheds. Shellfish were abundant. , horse clams, and cockles were dried for trade.

Hunting was specialized; professions were probably sea hunters, land hunters, and fowlers. Water fowl were captured on moonless nights using strategic flares.

The managed grasslands not only provided game habitat, but vegetable sprouts, roots, bulbs, berries, and nuts were foraged from them as well as found wild. The most important were probably bracken and camas, and wapato especially for the Duwamish. Many, many varieties of berries were foraged; some were harvested with comblike devices not reportedly used elsewhere. Acorns were relished but were not widely available. Regional tribes went in autumn to the Nisqually Flats (Nisqually plains) to harvest them.^[9] Indeed, the region was so abundant that the southern Puget Sound as a whole had one of the only that has ever existed.^{[citation needed]}

Mexico and Central America[]

South America[]

Meat[]

Grain and beans[]

Herbs[]

Vegetables[]

Fruit[]

River fish[]

Sea food[]

Europe[]

Plants[]

Fruits[]

• Grapes

Vegetables[]

Herbs[]

Other[]

• Chestnuts

Meat[]

Mediterranean[]

There was a great deal of commerce between the provinces of the Roman Empire. All the regions of the empire became interdependent with one another; some provinces specialized in the production of grain, others in wine and others in olive oil, depending on the soil type. Columella writes in his Res Rustica, "Soil that is heavy, chalky, and wet is not unsuited to the growing for winter wheat and spelt. Barley tolerates no place except one that is loose and dry."^[10] Pliny the Elder writes extensively about agriculture from books XII to XIX; in fact, XVIII is The Natural History of Grain.^[11] Crops grown on Roman farms included wheat, barley, millet, pea, broad bean, lentil, flax, sesame, chickpea, hemp, turnip, olives, pear, apples, figs, and plums. Others in the Mediterranean include:

Mediterranean and subtropical fruits[]

Fruits in this category are not hardy to extreme cold, as the preceding temperate fruits are, yet tolerate some frost and may have a modest chilling requirement. Notable among these are natives of the Mediterranean:

Asia[]

Common across Asia[]

Common Asian crops

Cereals	Rice
Pseudocereals
Pulses	Azuki bean, Soya bean
Fiber
Roots and tubers	Yams
Fruits	See List below
Meat and poultry	Chicken
Nuts
Other	Shiitake mushrooms, Tea

Fruits[]

These are some fruits native to Asia or of Asian origin.

Middle East or West Asia[]

The Neolithic founder crops (or primary domesticates) are the eight plant species that were domesticated by early Holocene (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region of southwest Asia, and which formed the basis of systematic agriculture in the Middle East, North Africa, India, Persia and (later) Europe. They consist of flax, three cereals and four pulses, and are the first known domesticated plants in the world. Although domesticated rye (Secale cereale) occurs in the final Epi-Palaeolithic strata at Tell Abu Hureyra (the earliest instance of a domesticated plant species), it was insignificant in the Neolithic Period of southwest Asia and only became common with the spread of farming into northern Europe several millennia later.

Cereals and pseudocereals[]

Vegetables[]

Pulses[]

Other[]

Indian Subcontinent[]

Around 7000 BCE, sesame, brinjal, and humped cattle were domesticated in the Indus Valley.^[12] By 3000 BCE, spices, like turmeric, cardamom, black pepper and mustard seed were harvested.^[13]

Fruit[]

Vegetables[]

Spices and Herbs[]

Grains[]

Meat[]

Other[]

North Asia[]

• Blackcurrant
• Cabbage
• Chamoe

Tibetan plateau

• Barley

China[]

Austronesia & New Guinea[]

Austronesia is the broad region covering the islands of both the Indian and the Pacific oceans settled by Austronesian peoples originating from Taiwan and southern China, starting at around 3,500 to 2,000 BCE. These regions include Island Southeast Asia, Near Oceania (Melanesia), Remote Oceania (Micronesia and Polynesia), Madagascar, and the Comoros Islands. Contact and cultural exchange with early Papuan agriculture in New Guinea also led to homogenization of the agriculture of the two ethnolinguistic groups. The plants originating from Austronesia and New Guinea include:^[14][15]

Meat[]

• Bos javanicus (banteng)
• Bubalus bubalis (carabao)
• Gallus gallus domesticus (chicken)

Animal products[]

• Aerodramus fuciphagus (edible-nest swiftlet)

Seafood[]

• Birgus latro (coconut crab)
• Macrobrachium rosenbergii (giant freshwater prawn)

Nuts[]

Grains[]

• Coix lachryma-jobi (Job's tears)
• Oryza sativa (rice)

Root crops[]

Vegetables and herbs[]

Fruits[]

Other[]

Australia[]

Fruits of Australian origin[]

Although the fruits of Australia were eaten for thousands of years as bushfood by Aboriginal people, they have only been recently recognized for their culinary qualities by non-indigenous people. Many are regarded for their piquancy and spice-like qualities for use in cooking and preserves. Some Australian fruits also have exceptional nutritional qualities, including high vitamin C and other antioxidants.

Root crops[]

• Murnong (Microseris lanceolata; Asteraceae)

Seeds and nuts[]

• Aniseed myrtle
• Macadamia nuts

Current importance of food origins[]

In 2016, researchers linked the origins and primary regions of diversity ("areas typically including the locations of the initial domestication of crops, encompassing the primary geographical zones of crop variation generated since that time, and containing relatively high species richness in crop wild relatives") of food and agricultural crops with their current importance around the world in modern national food supplies and agricultural production. The results indicated that national diets and farm production around the world were generally composed of a large set of crops from many diverse origins. Foreign crops (crops whose origins do not include the same region as the country) comprised 68.7% of national food supplies as a global mean, and their usage has increased in the last fifty years.^[16]

See also[]

• Ark of Taste
• List of culinary herbs and spices
• List of culinary nuts
• List of dried foods
• List of edible seeds
• List of snack foods
• List of vegetables
• Local food
• Neolithic Revolution
• New World crops

References[]