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Not wheat, corn, or soy beans. Oh, ye of little taste. The real plant that changed the world was Capsicum frutescens and C. annum, it's kissing cousin. The lowly pepper. What started as a tasty little nubbin of a fruit on a tropical plant now has changed cuisine the world over.
Yes potatoes feed more stomachs, as do bananas. The grain crops feed humanity. You can substitute one carobhydrate producer for another, within limits. But the pepper has hijacked cuisines the world over.
Find me an Asian, European, or African cuisine left untouched by this new world interloper. Everyone grows it, everyone eats it, and everyone has it in their cuisine in one way or another - even the British! (please note, some philistine will find some outlandish exception to this, like maybe the cuisine of Greenland - to which I intellectually reply -
).
So find me a crop that has changed humanity more than this lowly plant, loving altered by local inhabitants the world over. I would not be surprised if there are more current cultivars of this shy plant than any other food species grown by man. Other candidates are welcome to compete with this wondrous mana, please list them and your reasons below.
Yes potatoes feed more stomachs, as do bananas. The grain crops feed humanity. You can substitute one carobhydrate producer for another, within limits. But the pepper has hijacked cuisines the world over.
Find me an Asian, European, or African cuisine left untouched by this new world interloper. Everyone grows it, everyone eats it, and everyone has it in their cuisine in one way or another - even the British! (please note, some philistine will find some outlandish exception to this, like maybe the cuisine of Greenland - to which I intellectually reply -
).So find me a crop that has changed humanity more than this lowly plant, loving altered by local inhabitants the world over. I would not be surprised if there are more current cultivars of this shy plant than any other food species grown by man. Other candidates are welcome to compete with this wondrous mana, please list them and your reasons below.
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