The true origin of our everyday foods are more unusual than you might think?
Sour, bitter, spiky and tasteless domestication has created the delicious food we eat today.
Jumping in at number 10 we have the watermelon.
10.
Desert Watermelon ( Citrullus colocynthis) Watermelon
The watermelon started out as a hard, bitter tasting round fruit native to west africa.
The most agreed upon source is the Citrullus colocynthis an african wild melon that grows
in the desert.
This melon has weird swirl shapes on the inside you’ll notice matches up with old paintings
of watermelon throughout the years.
Cultivated for at least 3500 years, extensive nuclear and plastid genomic data of a single
leaf pulled from a 3500 year old Egypian sarcophagus confirmed in fact the Egyptians were domesticating
the watermelon.
Within the tomb was a sarcophagus covered in watermelon leaves.
Joseph Hooker a close friend of Charles Darwin had possession of them to with he locked them
in a case at Kew Gardens in London.
A kew gardens official agreed to give up 1 of the leaves from the collection to be tested.
Not only where watermelon leaves found among the pharaohs of the past but also carved onto
the walls of the Egyptian tombs.
It is believed watermelons would be buried with the pharaohs to help quench their thirst
on their long journey through the afterlife.
The watermelons native to west africa are amazingly resistant to the heat and if they
are stored in a shaded place away from the sun can last a long time.
There are no doubts this is one of the reasons the Egyptians treasured and cultivated them.
As watermelons were further developed to be more and more sweet, their initial yellow
flesh color which is confirmed by old paintings started to change.
The gene that determines sugar content is paired with the one for color and as they
were cultivated to be more sweet the watermelon became more pinkish red.
If you were wondering this here is an orangelo orange fleshed watermelon that is almost ready.
9.
Wild Tomato (Solanum pimpinellifolium) - Tomato First cultivated by the Incas and Aztecs going
back 1300 years ago, the tomato comes from wild tomatoes that are cherry sized and yellow
getting the name golden apples.
Considered poisonous during the time due to the belief they were deadly like the deadly
nightshade berry which looks very similar to this one the black nightshade berry the
tomato comes from a single wild source with multiple other wild neighbours.
Growing in the Andean region of Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru there are 18 wild
tomatoes with it believed the Solanum pimpinellifolium or wild currant tomato was the origin of this
food.
Measuring the size of a pea this tomato was crossed with other wild tomatoes in the region.
Lycopersicon hirsutum a wild tomato found in coastal valleys of peru added disease resistance
where Lycopersicon peruvianum a wild green tomato offered a wide array of characteristics.
Lycopersicon chilense another wild tomato along with Lycopersicon cheesmanii a tomato
only found on the Galapagos islands added unique abilities like tolerance of salty conditions.
The people of this region developed the tomato quite substantially before it made its way
to Europe.
After arriving in Europe through the 18th and 19th centuries an explosion of varieties
and hybrids like this indigo rose tomato were created further developing the tomato to what
it is today.
8.
Wild Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) - Blueberry
Originating from New Jersey which is the national fruit of the state in the United States the
blueberry comes from a cranberry farmer’s farm.
Frederick Coville a botanist for the USDA was the one to push through the years of trial
and error to finally understand how the blueberry thrives.
Many before him had given up with failure to domesticate this plant but Coville figured
out that the top quality manure and lime soil that was used for premium crops was the problem
and after noticing that wild blueberries grew well in peat bog acidic or poor soil he recreated
the same environment in his lab.
He also discovered that blueberries need other blueberries to cross-pollinate each other
to provide excellent production of berries.
For this reason, if you buy a blueberry in the store they usually have 3 different types
in one pot.
After his discoveries, he documented everything in a slim book called Experiments in Blueberry
Culture released in 1910.
This book was read by Elizabeth White the daughter of a cranberry farmer in New Jersey.
White offered to pay for Coville to come out to their farm and grow experimental blueberries.
White called upon the locals to bring them any local wild blueberries they could find
in exchange for the bush being named after them.
New blueberries like Harding, Hanes and the most successful the Rubel were chosen for
further cultivation.
The Rubel came from Rube Leek a man with a first name that sounded rude and leek being
a bad word to name a blueberry they decided to add the l to rube and call it the gem of
blueberries.
White continued to collect more wild blueberry bushes and even offering $50, or about $1300
today for a single bush that produced berries the size of a cent.
Coville working along White ended up developing over 100,000 blueberry bushes and as they
became more popular new warm tolerant varieties were created in places like Florida.
Candy in those days were wrapped in cellophane as seen as a sparkling treat so White decided
to do the same thing with the containers of blueberries in markets.
This helped drive their popularity up as a specialty market item.
The knowledge and efforts of Coville and White along with their hard work has created a new
industry that is booming 100 years later.
Wild blueberries can taste very mild or sweet, their color can vary from blue to black and
possess 2 times the antioxidants nutrients of domesticated varieties.
Smaller than domesticated blueberries, wild blueberries are known as lowbush blueberries
which is much more difficult to pick.
They must be picked by hand down low so when they were domesticated they were changed to
grow in a large tall bush which can easily be picked by hand and eventually by machines.
7.
Wild Cucumber (Cucumis sativus var.
Hardwickii) - Cucumber Originating from India over 4000 years ago
the cucumber was well documented in the past.
Listed as a food consumed by people in the legend of Gilgamesh, a historical king of
the Sumerian city-state of Uruk which today is in Iraq and it was mentioned in the Bible
as a food consumed by Israelites in Egypt.
The cucumber went through 2 stages of domestication.
It first started out as a wild cucumber or cucumis sativus var.
Hardwickii which is a small round cucumber that is highly seedy, has black spines on
the outside and tastes bitter.
Selective cultivation moved it along to the semi wild cucumis sativus var.
Xishuangbanna or orange fleshed cucumber.
This stage in the cucumber’s life offered twice as much fruit, the removal of spines,
better seeds to flesh ratio but still a bitter taste.
From here we have the g14 full size cucumber more designed for pickling and the 9930 or
chinese suyo long cucumber which doesn’t look all the different from an english cucumber.
Through it’s life of domestication was brought over to Greece, Rome and Europe as well as
the other direction to China.
From this basis of cucumbers numerous other varieties have been created like this amazing
specimen I have hanging behind me here or this red one from Nepal.
6.
Wild Mango (Spondia pinnata) - Mango The earliest mention of the mango comes from
Hindu scripture 6000 years ago.
While we aren’t certain the originating source of the mango was probably the Spondia
pinnata or the wild mango or jungle hog plum.
These wild mangoes grow among the foothills of the Himalayas of India and Burma, there
are still around 60 of these trees that still grow there today.
These tiny mangoes are fibrous and taste like turpentine which really show how far this
fruit has come.
4000 years ago the mango was first cultivated increasing its size, flavour and texture.
Its domestication started in India and moved throughout southeast asia.
Despite us knowing about it for 6000 years there are mango fossils found in southern
Asia that are 25-30 million years ago.
Alexander the great, on his expedition to India was impressed with the mango gardens
in Sindh in 327 bce.
It is said that Buddha meditated under a mango tree which helped the spread of this fruit.
Persian traders brought the mango to the Middle East and East Africa where Portugese traders
spread them throughout West Africa, Philippines and South America.
The word mango comes from the portugese word manga but it is still unknown where the O
came from.
Today there are over a 1000 different varieties of mangoes which India being the top producer
of the fruit.
They come in all different sizes, some never change color when they are ripe, some have
white flesh on the inside and can taste drastically different.
My personal favorite is this massive mango from west bali, feel free to identify it in
the comments if you know.
If you are ever at Bali Beach I bought it from exactly right here in the month of December.
5.
Wild Eggplant (Solanum incanum) - Eggplant A member of the pepper and tomato family the
eggplant has multiple different varieties like this Ozark egg white one here which makes
it difficult to know which is the true origin and parent plant.
Southeast Asia has been identified as the general region of origin with sights on Burma,
Thailand, China or India being the place where it all started.
Ayuvedic texts a couple thousand years old suggest it was used primarily medicinal back
in those days but it's important to remember they hadn't bred out the bitter taste yet.
Wild eggplants also possess nasty thorns much like this white one here.
I poked my finger on this a few days ago and it's surprisingly painful.
The progenitor of the eggplant was thought to be S. incarnum a plant native to the Middle
East and North Africa.
This garden weed was selectively developed in southeast Asia but it isn’t the only
option out there.
A small round fruit which is what eggplants used to be before domestication is found on
S. linnaeanum a plant native to the Middle East and Asia.
Some scholars believe an unknown plant of the savannas of southeast asia was the originating
plant and not two previously mentioned plant species.
Ancient Chinese documentation explains in detail what they did to transform the small
round wild eggplants into long necked purple fruits along with removing the bitter taste
and increasing their size.
Like many foods originating in China they were brought along the silk road through the
Middle East and eventually to Europe.
4.
Wild Banana ( Musa acuminata) - Banana Cultivated for 6500 years the banana’s origin
comes from musa acuminata a small banana filled with large seeds.
Bred with a larger more robust wild banana the Musa balbisiana to create the plantain
which has been the base of modern varieties of bananas.
Banana pollen and stem fossils date back 6500 years ago to New Guinea.
Through a combination of linguistic, archaeological and genealogical studies it was found that
the banana was introduced to Africa 2500 years ago.
Black Sigatoka a fungal disease puts our common banana the cavendish at risk which is what
happened to the gros michel banana.
The gros michel variety is a much tastier banana discovered in the 1800s and was designated
the primary banana of the world by the 1900s but by 1950 it was replaced by the cavendish
due to damage by black sigatoka.
If the cavendish banana goes extinct which looks quite possible, the Yangambi Km5 variety,
one coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, may take its place in the supermarket.
This banana is very much disease resistant but the only reason it isn’t common today
is its thin peel which isn’t as good for shipping them around the world.
3.
Wild Apple (Malus sieversii) - The Apple Apples are among the most popular fruit on
the planet and one of the most widely distributed.
Also being one of the top 20 most productive crops over 80 million tons are produced worldwide.
A young tree will take 5 - 7 years to bear fruit but can live for easily 100 years with
rare specimens lasting over 300 years.
Dating back a minimum of 4,000 but likely 10,000 years ago in the Tien Shan mountains
of Central Asia is where the origin of the Apple began.
The first domesticated apples came from the Malus sieversii crabapple in Kazakhstan (Very
Nice!)
These crabapples were altered to be more disease resistant, larger, sweeter, have firmer flesh,
bruise resistant and have improved shelf life.
Caravan traders 4,000 years ago brought the apple across Asia into Europe where it was
crossed with M. sylvestris, another cross of M. orientalis in the Caucasus and Malus
baccata in Siberia to create new apple varieties.
The earliest record of Malus domestica in Europe, the domesticated apple, comes from
northeastern Italy.
Another specimen was found in Ireland dating back 3,000 years.
Learning the art of sweet apple production from the Greeks the Romans started to grow
apples throughout their empire.
Dialing in the details of the apple, the past couple hundred years of domestication changed
many of their qualities like taste, size, tree production and growth speed.
Worldwide today there are around 7500 different varieties of apples which is all thanks to
a single apple in Kazakhstan.
2.
Wild Celery (Apium graveolens L.) - Celery First thought to have been cultivated in the
mediterranean region, celery originates from wild celery or Apium graveolens L. Natural
wet and salty sometimes marshy conditions provided the perfect climate for the wild
ancestor of the celery to grow.
Today finding wild celery isn’t an easy task, found north of the alps in the foothill
zone where soil has salt content.
Nutrient-rich, muddy, wet soil is where you’ll find it, not in Austria but Germany has rare
sightings of it.
North American production of celery is dominated by the Pascal cultivar.
Wild celery has wedge-shaped leaves, furrowed stalk which aren’t usually consumed unless
cooked for some time in soup.
The leaves are used in salads or dried and sold as a spice.
Offering an earthy taste with a distinctive smell this plant was cultivated to lose their
acidic qualities and become more mild and sweet.
Initially, celery was cultivated over the winter months and used to cleanse the body
in spring.
With the extension of the growing season, they are now grown September until April.
Another variety leaf celery or Chinese celery (-==) is believed to be the oldest cultivated
celery.
Grown in East Asia in marshlands leaf celery has thin stalks and a stronger taste and smell
to them.
This strong aroma and taste have been used for hundreds of years to flavour soups and
broths.
A more popular European variety in the celery family is celeriac.
Celeriac or celery root is a different plant than the grocery store celery you’re used
to.
Along with these varieties, other amazing color types exist like Chinese pink celery,
white celery and giant red celery which I tried but sadly failed to grow this year.
1.
Sea Beet (Beta vulgaris subsp.
Maritima) - Beets Dating back over 4000 years the origin of
the beet comes from the beta vulgaris subsp.
Maritima or sea beet.
Its name beta vulgaris comes from the Greek letter beta because of its resemblance to
a Greek B. Grown by the Romans and Greeks, both red and white beets were cultivated in
Italy by hand selecting wild sea beets that grow on the coast of the mediterranian.
Back in the early days of cultivation the red beets were much more highly desired than
the white but the white were much more common.
In the 18th century massive beets called mangel-wurzel or mammoth red mangel beets were developed
from fodder beets in Holland and Germany.
I actually tried to grow some mammoth red mangel beets this year which should be right
here but whatever reason they didn’t grow.
In the 1770s these massive beets were used as livestock feed.
American colonists brought beets to north america at which they became well established
in the 1800s.
Today 35% of the world’s sugar comes from beets with the rest from sugar cane.
If you enjoyed this episode you can check out part one of this series or my top 10 fruits
you’ve never heard of series and until the next one have a good one.