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HISTORY OF FOOD
PLANTS
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Overview, Origin and Distribution, Nature of Food Plants, Lower Plants as Sources of Food Fungi
Mushrooms Misc. Fungi Truffles Agar Algae Dulse Irish Moss Misc. Algae
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It is remarkable that most food plants in use in the world
today, as well as industrial plants, are of great antiquity. Most of our food plants were domesticated from
wild ancestors long before the beginning of recorded history. All available records indicate that they
were as familiar to the peoples of the ancient world as they are to us. Comparatively few new plants have been
developed during the past 2,000 years, although the older ones have been
greatly altered and improved in response to increasing complexity of the
human existence. There have been many attempts to determine the age of our
food plants and their place of origin as well as their cultural history. The classic work dealing with this phase
of botany is De Candolle’s “L’origine des plantes cultiveés,”
appearing in 1883. This was a very
careful piece of work of great accuracy.
Only a few of his conclusions regarding geographic distribution have
had to be altered in light of more recent studies. De Candolle based his conclusions on a variety of evidence,
such as the works of Dioscorides, Theophrastus and other old historians;
Chinese writings; archeological and ethnological data such as the monuments
in Egypt, the ruins in Pompeii and the remains of Lake Dwellers of Europe and
the Inca ruins of South America. He
also learned from philological indications involving the names of plants in
Hebrew, Sanskrit and other ancient languages. His botanical conclusions were based on distribution, number of
varieties, presence or absence of wild types, length of cultivation and
similar matters. He arranged the
useful plants in six classes. Hill
(1952) gave a few examples of each of these groups as follows: A. Old World Species Cultivated For Over
4,000 Years almond, apple,
apricot, banana, barley, broad beans, cabbage, cucumber, date, eggplant, fig,
flax, grape, hemp, mango, millet,
mulberry, olive, onion, peach, pear, quince, rice, sorghum, soybean,
tea, turnip. watermelon, wheat B. Old World Species
Cultivated For Over 2,000 Years and Perhaps Longer asparagus, beet,
breaffruit, carrot, celery, cherry, cjhestnut, cotton, garden pea, pummulo,
lemon, lettuce, lime, mustard, nutmeg, oats, orange, pepper, plum, poppy,
radish, rye, sugar cane, walnut, yam C. Old World Species
Cultivated Probably For Less Than 2,000 Years artichoke,
buckwheat, coffee, currant, endive, gooseberry, horseradish, muskmelon, okra,
parsley, parsnip, raspberry, rhubarb, strawberry D. New World Species of
Ancient Cultivation, More Than 2,000 Years [Also see ethnic.6] cacao, kidney bean, maize, maté, sweet
potato, tobacco4 E. New World Species
Cultivated Before The Time of Columbus avocado, cotton,
guava, sunchoke, peanut, pineapple, potato, pumpkin, quinoa, red pepper,
squash, tomato, vanilla F. New World Species
Cultivated Since The Time of Columbus allspice, blackberry, black walnut,
blueberry, cinchona, cranberry, dewberry, gooseberry, pecan, persimmon, plum
rubber strawberry The above examples show that our most valuable economic
plants, including the cereals, most of the vegetables and fruits, tea,
coffee, cocoa and the fiber plants, were discovered, utilized and cultivated
by humans thousands and thousands of years ago. It has been difficult to accurately determine the native
homes of our cultivated plants.
Obviously they must have been derived at some time in the remote past
from wild ancestors that originally had a restricted distribution. In most cases these wild forms no longer
exist, or humans far from their original home have transported them. Another important study, which illuminates the points
of origin of cultivated plants, is that of Vavilov. It appeared in 1926. His conclusions were based on a variety of
facts obtained from different sources.
He considered such things as anatomy, genetics, cytology, distribution
and diseases of the plants concerned.
A valuable conclusion in Vavilov’s work is that many of our cultivated
species of first rank, the primary crops as he called the, had a diversified
rather than a single origin. In the
case of wheat, for example, Vavilov pointed out that there were at least two
distinct centers of distribution. The
soft wheats came from Southwestern Asia, while the hard wheats originated in
the Mediterranean region. Similarly
barley was derived from Southwestern Asia, North Africa and Southeastern
Asia. Regarding the so-called secondary crop plants, Vavilov
contended that these were originally weed companions of the primary
crops. These weeds could not be
eliminated and were either ignored or tolerated by the farmers. In regions that were favorable for the
primary crops the weeds were of little importance. However, in unfavorable areas the weeds tended to become more
and more prominent and gradually replaced the primary crop eventually to
become established as a cultivated crop.
Rye and oats are conspicuous examples of such plants. Finally Vavilov concluded that the great centers of
distribution of our cultivated crops were always in mountainous regions, and
that the greatest amount of diversity occurred in such areas. He generally recognized the four centers
of distribution with the addition of a fifth area in Abyssinia and adjacent
parts of Northern Africa. He also
suggested the possibility of a sixth center in the Philippines where rice and
coix may have originated. There appear to be four major centers in the world from
which our economic plants originated and from where they were gradually
dispersed. These are (1) Central or
Southwestern Asia and the mountainous region from India to Asia Minor and
Tran Caucasus; (2) the Mediterranean region; (3) Southeastern Asia; and (4)
the highlands of the Neotropics. From earliest times humans had at their disposal
various food plants on which they must have been dependent to a great extent
for their existence. Early humans
wandered from place to place being content to gather the edible fruits,
grains, seeds and tubers when they were needed and to possibly to temporarily
store them in small amounts.
Primitive attempts at cultivation gradually progressed to sowing seeds
in some favorable location. Whether
these first attempts at agriculture were accidental or purposeful, they were
of great importance for they changed the nature of human existence. Necessity caused humans to reduce their
nomadic existence and to remain in one place at least long enough to harvest
the crops. In this way the first step
was taken toward civilization because agriculture is the only mode of
existence that has enabled us to live together in communities and to
accumulate the necessities of life.
Agriculture was of the utmost importance and probably represents the
most significant single advance in the human development.
Simple type of plant
culture was gradually replaced with greater sophistication that led finally
to the building of the great nations of antiquity. These ancient civilizations were restricted in area for they
developed only in those regions where the useful plants were native. Therefore Asia Minor and adjacent areas in
Southwestern Asia, the Mediterranean region, Southeastern Asia and the
Neotropical American highlands were the locations of the older civilizations. The presence of valuable agricultural
plants in all these regions was the most important factor in the development
of agriculture, although in all of these areas climate and soil conditions
also were very favorable. The climate
was equable, with little extremes of heat and cold; the soil was fertile; and
there was either ample rainfall or irrigation possible. In Central Asia the principal native agricultural
plants included alfalfa, apple, barley, broad bean, buckwheat, cherry, flax,
garden peas, garlic, hemp, lentil, mulberry, olive, onion, pomegranate, plum,
quince, radish, rye and spinach. The Mediterranean region had the artichoke, asparagus,
cabbage, cauliflower, cotton, fig, horseradish, millet, parsnip, parsley and
rhubarb. Common to both of these areas
were the almond, carrot, carob, celery, chestnut, grape, lettuce, mustard,
turnip and walnut. Wheat is also a
native of some part of this combined region.
Whether it was indigenous to Syria and Palestine, to Turkestan or
Mesopotamia, or perhaps had a multiple origin, it was available throughout
the region from very early times. In Southeastern Asia the banana, breadfruit, millet,
peach, persimmon, orange, rice, soybean, sugar cane and yam were native; in
the Neotropics cacao, American cotton, kidney and lima beans, maize, potato,
squash, tobacco and tomato were indigenous. Of interest is the presence of at least one cereal in
all of these four cultural areas.
Ancient agriculture was based principally on these cereals, as is true
today. Their highly nutritious seeds
were the staff of life 5-10, 000 years ago, and have remained so to present
times. It was the cultivation of
wheat in the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that made
possible the great nations of Biblical time: Chaldea, Babylonia and Assyria.
Egypt, Greece and Rome had both wheat and barley at hand. Rice was the basis of the restricted
civilization that developed in the valley of the Hwang Ho and Yangtze Kiang
rivers and led to the development of the Chinese empire. Maize was cultivated in the highlands of
the Neotropics. There is a great
similarity in the history of agriculture in all these areas. First the gathering the edible portions of
wild plants followed by the primitive cultivation of certain species best
adapted to the human need; and finally the evolution of a high-grade
agriculture that involved the breeding of new varieties, improvements inn
cultivation, irrigation and other aspects of agriculture. This similarity between the Old and the
New World has caused some speculation that the American civilization must
have had some contact with those of the Old World and been influenced by
them. However, the present opinion
suggests that agriculture in America has had an entirely separate development
and that any resemblance with Old World techniques is purely coincidental. The various materials that make up the food of plants
and animals are used either in the formation of the living protoplasm, the
building up of their bodily structure or as a source of energy. Humans and other animals are not able to
manufacture their own food, as are plants.
Therefore, they must obtain their food readymade and so are dependent,
either directly or indirectly, on plants.
Plants manufacture much more food than they can utilize immediately
and they store up this surplus as a reserve supply for future use. It is this supply of reserves that is used
by animals. The essential foods
produced by plants are carbohydrates, fats and proteins, each being of value
in its own way to animal metabolism.
There are also mineral salts, organic acids, vitamins and enzymes that
are required for general health. It
is thus possible for us to live entirely on a vegetarian diet. Plants store food in various ways, either in roots,
stems, leaves, fruits or seeds. The
most important of these for humans are fruits and seeds. In this category are found the cereals and
small grains, the legumes and the nuts.
All contain large amounts of nutritive material and have
proportionately low water content, which enhances their value for they can be
stored and transported with ease.
Roots, tubers, bulbs and other vegetables from the soil are next in importance
as sources of our food and the lower animals as well. Their value is less because they contain
much water. The leafy parts of
plants, the greens, salad plants and other herbage vegetables, contain
comparatively little stored food. But
they are necessary because of the vitamins and mineral salts they contain and
the mechanical effect of their indigestible cellulose. This is true also of the fleshy fruits
that may also contain various organic acids.
The following categories will be treated separately: cereals, small grains, legumes, nuts,
earth vegetables, herbage vegetables, fruit vegetables and fleshy fruits. There are hundreds of species of plants, both wild and
cultivated, that are used only by primitive peoples or in restricted areas of
the world. Thus a detailed discussion
will be on those food plants used by the majority of peoples of the world. Mushrooms, truffles and other fungi have been used as
food in ancient times. Records exist
from 500 B.C. Mushrooms were well known
to the Greeks and were items of delicacy by the Romans. During the Middle Ages the consumption of
edible fungi soared. Today they are
consumed by both primitive and civilized cultures. Wild fungi are consumed everywhere and cultivation is carried out
in Europe, North America and the Orient. These occur naturally in woods, fields and
pastures. They are the reproductive
stage of certain of the higher fungi.
The vegetative stage consists of masses of fine threads, or hyphae, that
constitute the mycelium. The mycelium
extends in all directions through the soil and derives its nourishment
saprophytically from decaying organic matter. Usually under favorable environmental conditions the visible
spore-bearing stage appears above the ground. There are many different kinds of edible wild
mushrooms. They are more delicate in
flavor and more palatable than the cultivated varieties. But great caution is required in
distinguishing edible mushrooms from poisonous ones, the latter being known
as toadstools. There is no definite
rule that would absolutely separate the two groups. Because of this it is
wise not to harvest any mushroom that resembles a poisonous form. The Boletaceae is a mushroom family of
pore fungi that have very few poisonous species and are relatively safe to
harvest. Their flavor is not as good
as the Agaricaceae, or gill fungi, but it can be greatly enhanced by
drying. The “boletes”
are very common in conifer forests. Cultivation of
Mushrooms In the 17th Century mushrooms began to be
cultivated. Although many species
have come under cultivation since, the common meadow
mushroom, Agaricus campestris, is the most common. Propagation can be either by spores or
mycelium, called spawn. It is
essential to maintain an optimum environment during this process. Little or no light, plenty of moisture and
a constant temperature of 55-58 deg. Fahrenheit are optimum. The soil needs to be rich in organic
matter so bovine manure is an excellent medium. Environments in caves, cellars and tunnels are perfect for
growing mushrooms. The spores germinate or the mycelium resumes its growth
ramifying through the soil and in about six weeks little buttons appear on
the surface of the soil. These enlarge
to form a chamber in which the gills develop. The chamber is raised up on a short fleshy stalk and finally
opens out into the characteristic umbrella shape pileus with the gills on the
underside. Commercial mushrooms are
usually gathered in the button stage or before they are fully mature. The mycelium continues to bear from 6-8
months. Mushrooms do not possess much food value because nearly
91 percent of the flesh is water.
Proteins make up about 3.75 percent, carbohydrates 3.50 and fats only
0.20 percent. Truffles are great delicacies and avidly sought after
in the wild. They differ from most
other fungi by producing their fruiting bodies underground. They are solid, with a firm black or grayish-brown
flesh and an agreeable odor and taste.
Truffles are most common in England and on the European
Continent. The principal commercial
area is in southern France. Truffles
prefer a light, porous limestone soil in oak, beech or birch forests. They are usually collected in the wild
state, although crude attempts at cultivations have been made. These involve mostly stimulating natural
production in favorable areas. Harvest
is with the aid of specially trained pigs or dogs whose keen sense of smell
enables them to locate the fungi.
Truffles are collected when they are mature. Several main species that are utilized are Tuber melanosoporum,
T. aestivum and T. brumale. The morel, Morechella
esculenta, is a not too common wild edible fungus in the United States,
usually found in maple forests. This
species and several related ones have been grown in France and elsewhere in
Europe. In Japan there are several
native species cultivated, chiefly the shitake, Cartinellus edodes. This aromatic species is grown on logs and
can be stored for a long time in the dried state. By 1952 over one thousand tons were grown annually in Japan. By 2003 there has been a great increase in
the culture of several species of mushroom in Europe and North America as the
demand increased. There have been only a few species of algae utilized in
Europe and America for food, as the demand has been low. However, in Japan, China and the Pacific
Islands algae have constituted one of the main articles of diet. In Japan the demand is so great that many
species are cultivated. Sometimes
seven different kinds are served at a single meal. Over 70 varieties are consumed in Hawaii and a few of these are
cultivated. The nutritive value of
algae is high. There is a
carbohydrate content of about 50 percent, with small amounts of proteins and
fats. Additionally they are rich in
vitamins and also possess a greater variety of mineral salts than any other
foods. Three species that have been
of importance in the United States are Irish moss, dulse and agar. Chondrus crispus is a perennial alga found from
Maine to North Carolina. The fresh
plant is greenish purple in color with densely tufted fronds from 2-10 in. in
length. These are narrow and
cylindrical at the base but later become flattened and repeatedly
forked. Because Irish Moss is common
in New England a commercial effort was launched in eastern Massachusetts. The plants are gathered with iron rakes at
ebb tide and are then spread out on the beach to dry and bleach. Later they are soaked in salt water and
again bleached. This process is
repeated 4-5 times. The final
commercial product is yellowish white and has a hard, horny consistency. Irish moss has high mucilage content and
is used chiefly in making farinas, blancmanges and other deserts. The colloidal material, carrageenin, is extracted and purified. It is an excellent emulsifying and
suspending agent that is used in the baking and dairy industries and in an
array of other products ranging from hand lotions and tooth paste to
beer. This species also grows on the
Atlantic Coast of Europe and is a favorite food in the west of Ireland. Rhodymenia palmata, or sea
kale, is a red alga found on rocky shores of the North Atlantic. It is frequently dried and used for food. Agar is a favored food in China and Japan where it is
used in soups, sauces, jellies, etc.
In the United States and Europe it is used by bakers and in making ice
cream, candy, mayonnaise, cheese, jellies and other desserts. It has also been used in clarifying
liquors, canning fish and other industrial purposes. Several other species of algae that are used in Iceland,
Ireland and Scotland for food include the green laver, Ulea lactuca,
murline, Alaria esculenta, and pink lver, Porphyra lacinata. |