The Indigenous people developed a range of vegetables and plant products using evolutionary methods long before others around the world.
Henry the Eighth was a prodigious glutton who feasted on pheasants, swans and boar’s head with abandon and washed them down with vast quantities of wine and ale.
Vegetables were a small part of his diet since they were regarded as food for the poor. He died at age 58, obese and gout-ridden, but such was the life of a medieval despot.
Meanwhile, the Spanish were busy plundering the Americas and conquering the Indigenous nations with a mixture of disease and genocide. In their singular search for gold, they ignored the large array of plants and vegetables that the Indigenous people had cultivated and grown for centuries.
For example, cotton was developed about 4,000 years before the conquest. While Europeans were suffering in hot scratchy wool products, the people in Mesoamerica had developed cotton clothing. Rubber and tobacco were two other examples of plant products developed in the Americas.
Corn was developed in the Mexican province of Oaxaca 7,000 years before the Spanish conquest. Corn had spread throughout the Americas as far as the Mapuche nation in South America to the Mohawks in the north.
The Quechua people of the Andes made up the population of the Inca empire. They created an impressive agricultural economy with a wide range of vegetables grown on terraced hillsides. The original potatoes were developed at Lake Titicaca in southern Peru.
They have over 25 different kinds of potatoes that consist of a wide range of sizes and colours. They developed the first freeze-dried potatoes by freezing potatoes at high altitudes and thawing them during the day. After a few days of this, the potatoes would be dry and could be stored for an extended period.
The Spanish discovered the potato while they were raiding an Inca Village in search of gold and silver. They thought it was some kind of truffle. From there, the humble potato made its way to Europe and today it is one of the most important vegetables on the planet.
In Europe, vegetables consisted of root crops such as carrots, turnips and onions. Cabbage was also an important crop. The diet of the average European was pretty bland and of limited nutritional value.
The Americas produced a wide range of fruits and vegetables including corn, potatoes, sweet potato, squash, beans, pumpkins, wild rice, peppers, chilies, tomatoes, bananas, cacao, sunflowers, avocado, pineapple, cassava and so on, too numerous to mention.
Some of the vegetables such as corn, potatoes and tomatoes became a dietary staple in Europe and improved their nutrition and provided a more varied diet.
In the 14th century, Europe had been decimated by the black plague. This form of bubonic plague killed about 50 million people, which was almost half of the European population.
The remaining population needed a better diet and more variety. The foods imported from the Americas filled this important need and it was a game changer for the Europeans.
Thanksgiving is a time for families to get together and share a meal that represents the bounty of the land. The turkey you plan to eat came from the Americas. In fact, my wife’s home on Cornwall Island reserve is home to a variety of animals including wild turkeys.
The last time I visited, every morning a mother turkey and her brood would walk past the house and go down to the river. The island was their home too and they were welcome to live among us.
The great irony is that the Indigenous people of the Americas provided much of the modern diet, but, in the process, lost their land and suffered huge population losses.
Doug Cuthand is the Indigenous affairs columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the Regina Leader-Post. He is a member of the Little Pine First Nation.
Our websites are your destination for up-to-the-minute Saskatchewan news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and leaderpost.com. For Regina Leader-Post newsletters click here; for Saskatoon StarPhoenix newsletters click here