Capsicum: From the new world to Europe

Capsicum originated in Mexico, Central America, and South America. This genus of capsicum is native to tropical and subtropical America in a wide region comprising Mexico and northern Central America, the Caribbean, the lowland Bolivia, the northern lowland Amazonia, and the mid-elevation southern Andes, where archaeological evidence suggests use of this spice crop since 6000 BC.

Native Americans had grown chili plants between 5200 and 3400 BC. This places chilies among the oldest cultivated crops of the Americas. The genus Capsicum is one of the first plants being cultivated in the New World with beans.

Capsicum annuum and Capsicum frutescens were widely distributed from the New World to other continents via Spanish and Portuguese traders while the other species are little distributed outside South America.

In the Caribbean region where Christopher Columbus landed, the pods of the plant were called "ají," sometimes spelled "axí" or "agí" or "ajé" by early Spaniards. The crop was firstly introduced in Europe by Christopher Columbus during his travels after the discovery of America in the fifteenth century and later spread to Africa and Asia.

Early imported varieties belong to C. chinense which most probably were the most consumed during that time.

It spread to countries in Africa and Asia by way of the trade routes operating at that time. The fruit was traded initially as black pepper (Piper nigrum L.), a species with its own unique form of pungency but otherwise dissimilar in appearance and taxonomically unrelated to Capsicum. Peppers were named by Christopher Columbus and Spanish explorers who were searching for peppercorn plants to produce black pepper. Columbus took samples of a wide variety of peppers back to Europe where they became quite popular. For this reason, cultivated Capsicum acquired the common name ‘‘pepper.’’
Capsicum: From the new world to Europe

The history of raspberry

The history of raspberry consumption and domestication goes back to ancient times. The European raspberry is a native of Europe from Greece and Italy, north into Scandinavia and far eastward into Asia.

It was name for Mount Ida, in Asia Minor and was possibly more or less cultivated in southern Europe in ancient times. Fruits were gathered from the wild by the people of Troy in the foothills of Mount Ida around the time of Christ. Records of domestication were found in 4th century writings of Palladius, a Roman agriculturist and seeds have been discovered at Roman forts in Britain.

It is believed that Roman soldiers spread the cultivation of this plant throughout Europe. Raspberry gradually grew in popularity over the centuries, and by the 1500s, R. idaeus was cultivated all over Europe.

King Edward I is recognized as the first person to call for the cultivation of berries. By the 17th century, British gardens were rich with berries and berry bushes. In 1829, 23 raspberry cultivars were liste0 in the “History of English Gardening”.

It was early brought to America by colonists from Europe and prior to the middle of the nineteenth century was the only raspberry commonly cultivated in USA.
The history of raspberry

Origin of pears

Pears (pyrus communis, Rosaceae) have been cultivated for thousands of years. The fruit originated in prehistoric times as a fruit crop. Native to Middle East, pears toady also grow world across of Europe and Asia. They do not seem to have been known to the ancient Greeks or Egyptians, but were to the Romans, who spread pear cultivation throughout their empire.

The Romans ate pears,  both raw and cooked. The less exquisite fruits were made into perry, or into pear vinegar, for which Pliny, Varro, Columella and other Roman authors on such subjects all had their own recipes.

The Byzantines feasted on pears in jelly, pear preserves, pears cooked in wine or in oxymel (a syrup of vinegar and honey).

It was in the seventeenth century that the European pear became much more widely distributed.

English and French settlers took the pear to East Coats America and Canada. Probably, the Spanish took pears to South America. In North America it has emerged as the most widely grown and a pear much used in canning.

Dutch traders introduced operas to South Africa, and British explorers took pears to Australia and New Zealand in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In these centuries, as in Europe the pear became a garden orchard and market fruit, and also an export fruit shipped around the globe.

Second only to apples in world production of deciduous tree fruits; pears are consumed fresh, cooked, dried or as preserves. In Europe some are used for making perry or pear wine.
Origin of pears

History of spinach in America

Spinacia oleracea is a member of the Chenopodiaceae family and is related to Swiss chard, table beet, sugar beet, pigweed, and saltbush. 

The first written evidence of spinach in the Mediterranean are in three tenth-century works, the medical work by al-Razi (known as Rhazes in the West) and in two agricultural treatises, one by Ibn Wahshiya and the other by Qustus al-Rumi.

When Moors invaded Spain in 110 AD, spinach came with them, but it was not widely cultivated in Europe before the 16th century.

The American colonists brought spinach to North America. The introduction of spinach into the New World extended a process that had been taking place for centuries in the Old World. 

By 1806 at least three cultivars were being grown; by 1828 the first curly-leaved type was introduced.

Its importance as a food is reflected by the increase in commercial acreage since people have become vitamin and mineral conscious.

In the United States, spinach is the most important vegetable green and nearly 75% of its total production is processed for canning, freezing and pureed baby food.
History of spinach in America

History of tomato soup in America

Tomato soup is quintessential American comfort food, usually eaten with a grilled cheese sandwich.

Although tomatoes apparently were introduced into Florida in the 1600s, they made minimal impression on the dietary habits of Americans until two centuries later. The first tomato soup recipes were simply tomatoes added to basic vegetable soups.

By 1840s tomatoes were an important part of most cookery books, Modern Cookery, written by the British cookbook author Eliza Acton for publication in the United States, in 1845 contained several tomato recipes.

Between 1832 when N. M. K. Lee’s first tomato soup recipe was published and in 1841, when Lettice Bryan’s version published the multitude of other vegetable were left out and the purely tomato soup know today emerge. Lettice Bryan’s Kentucky Housewife feature more than twenty tomato recipes, including some for baked, broiled, stewed, fried and pickled tomatoes.

Andrew Smith in his The Tomato in America stated that tomatoes were used in soup at least as early as the mid-eighteenth century in colonial America.

In 1897, John T Dorrance created a process of condensing soup which involved removing half of the water from the soup to create a thicker consistency.

The first production in 1898 means reducing volume to make it lighter and more transportable, cheaper to can and yet convenient to cook was a new development of a specifically commercial commodity food.

History of tomato soup in America