The wild carrot has whitish/ivory colored roots, but the popular orange rooted carrot we are used to is derived from yellow rooted domestic varieties.
The earliest vegetable definitely known to be a carrot dates from the 10th century in Persia and Asia Minor, and would have been quite unlike the orange rooted carrot of today. It is recorded that carrots were originally purple or white with a thin root until a mutant occurred which removed the purple pigmentation resulting in a new race of yellow carrots.
The centre of diversity for the carrot is in central Asia, and the first cultivation of carrot for its storage root is reported to be in the Afghanistan region, approximately 11oo years ago.
Modern carrot breeders have further refined the carrot, improving flavor, sweetness, reducing bitterness and improving texture and color. There have also been significant improvements in disease and pest reduction resulting in ever increasing yields.
The Tomato History has origins traced back to the early Aztecs around 700 A.D; therefore it is believed that the tomato is native to the Americas. It was not until around the 16th century that Europeans were introduced to this fruit when the early explorers set sail to discover new lands. Throughout Southern Europe, the tomato was quickly accepted into the kitchen, yet as it moved north, more resistance was apparent. The British, for example, admired the tomato for its beauty, but believe that it was poisonous, as its appearance was similar to that of the wolf peach.
It was not regarded as a kitchen vegetable until the times preceding The Civil War Period in the United States. From this point forward,tomatoes have become a staple item in the kitchen throughout the world. Each area of the world has its own tomato history and how it is used in everyday dining. It appears though that tomatoes have had the largest impact on American eating habits, as they are responsible for enjoying over 12 million tons of tomatoes each year.
The green bean originates in Central and South America. The green bean was domesticated in ancient times, but researchers can’t say exactly where, although seeds of cultivated forms were found in deposits from Callejon de Huaylas, Peru with a radiocarbon dating of 7680 B.P. and from 7000 B.P. in Tehuacán, Mexico.
The green bean was introduced to the Mediterranean upon the return of Columbus from his second voyage to the New World in 1493. In Columbus's diary from November 4, 1492 he describes lands in Cuba planted with faxones and fabas "different than ours." Later he encounterd fexoes and habas that were different than the ones he knew from Spain. Faxones was probably the cowpea and fabas and habas was the fava bean. The beans Columbus found were undoubtedly what is now designated Phaseolus vulgaris.
Home for cucumbers (which have three main varieties - "slicing", "pickling", and "burpless") originated from Ancient India where it grew in the wild. Around 2-3 millennia BC, early Indian civilization managed to domesticate cucumber and start infusing it into their rich cuisine. As time went by, their manufacturing capabilities expanded, and in 1st millennia BC they started trading with Middle Eastern civilization and Europe. The most famous example of cucumber finding home in Middle East can be found in the legends of the ancient Ur and the sagas of Gilgamesh. Later on, Greek civilization embraced cucumbers and started calling them síkyon (σίκυον). During those times, cucumbers also reached Turkey, Bulgaria, Africa, Modern-day Serbia and Italy.
Christopher Columbus brought cucumbers to Haiti in 1494 where they were grown by Spanish settlers and distributed further across New World. During 16th century, European trappers in North America introduced cucumbers to the native Indians in the region of Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Those tribes quickly saw the potential and nutritious value of cucumbers and watermelons, integrating them into immediately into their fields. The best Native American cucumber farmers were located on the lands of modern North and South Dakota.
During 18th century, expansion of cucumbers across North America suddenly stopped when several medicinal journals started reporting that cucumbers and all similar vegetables that were not cooked represented serious health risk. Discouraged by those misconceptions, cucumber use plummeted across the continent, which was reversed only in 19th century.
In 2010 worldwide cucumber production was 57.5 million tons, with majority of the world’s production and export being located in China (40.7 million tons).
The use of the Jalapeno dates back as far as the Aztecs, who were known to smoke the chiles. Since they are so thick, and have such a fleshy skin, the Jalapeno cannot be dried to preserve, as it will rot after sitting out for a couple of days.
The Jalapeno is one of the most commonly grown chiles in Mexico, and today it is one of the most commonly used and grown in the US as well. The name is taken from the term Jalapa, which is the capital of Veracruz, Mexico. The size of these chiles range anywhere from 2 to 2.5 inches in length, and are about 1 inch around.
New fossil evidence shows prehistoric people from southern Peru up to the Bahamas were cultivating varieties of chilies millennia before Columbus' arrival brought the spice to world cuisine.
The earliest traces so far are from southwestern Ecuador, where families fired up meals with homegrown peppers about 6,100 years ago.
The discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science, suggests early New World agriculture was more sophisticated than once thought.
So the term "Bell Pepper" goes back at least to the late 1600's where the"pirate" and ship's surgeon Lionel Wafer wrote about them in the book " A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America that was in the Caribean.
Thistles—in the form of artichokes and cardoons—have been on the human table since at least the days of ancient Greece and Rome. According to Greek myth, the artichoke owes its existence to the philandering Zeus who—on a visit to his brother Poseidon—spotted a gorgeous girl, Cynara, bathing on the beach. He fell instantly in love, seduced her, made her a goddess, and took her back with him to Mount Olympus. Cynara, however, lonesome and missing her mother, soon took to sneaking home to visit her family. This duplicitous act so infuriated Zeus that—in a fit of temper worthy of Caravaggio—he tossed Cynara from Olympus and turned her into an artichoke. The modern scientific name for artichoke—Cynara cardunculus—derives from this luckless girl.
Both today’s cultivated artichoke and cardoon are, scientists believe, descended from the wild cardoon, a tougher, meaner, and pricklier plant, likely a native of north Africa and Sicily. Pliny the Elder mentions two types of edible thistles known to first-century Romans: one which “throws out numerous stalks immediately it leaves the ground,” which sounds like a cardoon; the other “thicker, and having but a single stem” and purple flowers, which may be a progenitor of the modern globe artichoke. This last, according to Pliny, had a number of beneficial medicinal effects, among them curing baldness, strengthening the stomach, freshening the breath, and promoting the conception of boys. Though Pliny doesn’t mention it, it was also purportedly an aphrodisiac. The Roman ate them pickled in honey and vinegar, and seasoned with cumin.
It is generally accepted that C. pepo is native to the Americas. Remains have been found in Central America and Mexico dating back as far as 7000 BC. From its southern origin, squash spread throughout North America. The name squash is apparently derived from the Algonquin askoot asquash, meaning eaten green. The plant found its way to Europe when the early explorers returned home.
C. pepo is confusing because of the great diversity in its family which includes pumpkins, squashes and ornamental gourds. Flowering is monoecious, separate male and female flowers, so bees carry on the pollination. Because bees can carry pollen from any number of squash cousins, the crosses can be quite interesting if seeds are planted the following year. (Such a cross resulted in the delightful winter squash Swan White Bale Queen a few years ago.)
According to Washington State University Extension, archaeologist have "unearthed peas in ancient tombs" and discovered old literature and drawings that describe peas. The Chinese think Emperor, Shu Nung, discovered pea plants about 5,000 years ago. Characterized as the "Chinese Father of Agriculture," Nung explored the country looking for edibles to sustain the populace and plants that might be used for medicinal purposes. As with others, he took a liking to peas only after he fed them to his dog and then to a servant to ensure they weren't poisonous. Physical evidence of peas was found in Egyptian tombs of the 12th dynasty.
Norse mythology contends that an angry Thor sent flying dragons to drop peas into all the earth's wells, thereby filling them up and fouling the water. But some of the peas landed outside the wells and sprouted, giving the people another food source. To appease Thor, the mortals ate them only on Thursday, which was dedicated to him.
Even after the vegetable became a well-known edible, it took awhile for their popularity to catch on. Washington State University extension states claims the Romans preferred chickpeas and other protein-packed fruit over peas. Peas were consumed most often during the Lenten season in the Middle Ages. But their portability and minimal storage requirements encouraged future eating. Peas were dried and stored, just like beans, another legume. American settlers ate them as a staple on their Atlantic crossing and considered them an essential as they settled in the New World. Peas were one of the first crops to be planted in the colonies.
Because onions are small and their tissues leave little or no trace, there is no conclusive opinion about the exact location and time of their birth. Many archaeologists, botanists, and food historians believe onions originated in central Asia. Other research suggests onions were first grown in Iran and West Pakistan.
It is presumed our predecessors discovered and started eating wild onions very early – long before farming or even writing was invented. Very likely, this humble vegetable was a staple in the prehistoric diet.
Most researchers agree the onion has been cultivated for 5000 years or more. Since onions grew wild in various regions, they were probably consumed for thousands of years and domesticated simultaneously all over the world. Onions may be one of the earliest cultivated crops because they were less perishable than other foods of the time, were transportable, were easy to grow, and could be grown in a variety of soils and climates. In addition, the onion was useful for sustaining human life. Onions prevented thirst and could be dried and preserved for later consumption when food might be scarce. While the place and time of the onion's origin is still a mystery, many documents from very early times describe its importance as a food and its use in art, medicine, and mummification.
Onions grew in Chinese gardens as early as 5000 years ago and they are referenced in some of the oldest Vedic writings from India. In Egypt, onions can be traced back to 3500 B.C. There is evidence that the Sumerians were growing onions as early as 2500 B.C. One Sumerian text dated to about 2500 B.C. tells of someone plowing over the city governor's onion patch.
In Egypt, onions were considered to be an object of worship. The onion symbolized eternity to the Egyptians who buried onions along with their Pharaohs. The Egyptians saw eternal life in the anatomy of the onion because of its circle-within-a-circle structure. Paintings of onions appear on the inner walls of the pyramids and in the tombs of both the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom. The onion is mentioned as a funeral offering, and depicted on the banquet tables of the great feasts – both large, peeled onions and slender, immature ones. They were shown upon the altars of the gods.
Onions were eaten by the Israelites in the Bible. In Numbers 11:5, the children of Israel lament the meager desert diet enforced by the Exodus: "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic."
In India as early as the sixth century B.C., the famous medical treatise Charaka – Sanhita celebrates the onion as medicine – a diuretic, good for digestion, the heart, the eyes, and the joints.
The Romans ate onions regularly and carried them on journeys to their provinces in England and Germany. Pliny the Elder, Roman's keen-eyed observer, wrote of Pompeii's onions and cabbages. Before he was overcome and killed by the volcano's heat and fumes, Pliny the Elder cataloged the Roman beliefs about the efficacy of the onion to cure vision, induce sleep, heal mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery, and lumbago. Excavators of the doomed city would later find gardens where, just as Pliny had said, onions had grown. The bulbs had left behind telltale cavities in the ground. The Roman gourmet Apicius, credited with writing one of the first cookbooks (which dates to the eighth and ninth centuries A.D.), included many references to onions.
By the Middle Ages, the three main vegetables of European cuisine were beans, cabbage, and onions. In addition to serving as a food for both the poor and the wealthy, onions were prescribed to alleviate headaches, snakebites, and hair loss. They were also used as rent payments and wedding gifts.
Later, the first Pilgrims brought onions with them on the Mayflower. However, they found that strains of wild onions already grew throughout North America. Native American Indians used wild onions in a variety of ways, eating them raw or cooked, as a seasoning or as a vegetable. Such onions were also used in syrups, as poultices, as an ingredient in dyes, and even as toys. According to diaries of colonists, bulb onions were planted as soon as the Pilgrim fathers could clear the land in 1648.
When the Spanish explorers first came to the New World they were searching for an ocean route to India and its fabled treasures of gold, silver, spices and jewels. They found them on these two new continents, North and South America, but they found many other things far more valuable, including three of the world' s most important food plants: corn, the white or Irish potato, and the sweet potato.
Being a tropical plant, the sweet potato probably was found before the Irish potato -- by Columbus in the West Indies, by Balboa in Central America, and by Pizarro in Peru. Like corn, it was not found growing wild, but it had been cultivated by the Incan and pre-Incan races for thousands of years. They had developed many varieties, as is shown by their ancient pottery. In most places in Latin America, the sweet potato is called "camote", but the Incans called it "batata" and that is apparently the origin of our word "potato".
The sweet potato was carried back to Spain and thence to Italy, from where it spread to Austria, Germany, Belgium and England before the first Irish potatoes arrived. It took 200 years for the English to accept Irish potatoes as being fit for human food, but the sweet potato immediately became a rare and expensive delicacy. Now it is widely grown in Asiatic lands, including Japan and southern Russia, in the warmer Pacific islands, in tropical America, and in the United States as far north as New Jersey.
In Great Britain the term broccoli refers to the cauliflower (Brassica oleracea, Botrytis group). Native to the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor, sprouting broccoli was cultivated in Italy in ancient Roman times and was introduced into England about 1720 and to America probably in colonial times.
Like the other close relatives of cabbage, broccoli is native to the Mediterranean area and Asia Minor. It has been popular in Italy since the days of the Roman Empire. However, records indicate this vegetable was unknown in England until a relatively recent few hundred years ago. It has become popular in the United States only during this century.
Roman references to a cabbage family vegetable that may have been broccoli are less than perfectly clear: the Roman natural history writer, Pliny the Elder, wrote about a vegetable which might have been broccoli. Some vegetable scholars recognize broccoli in the cookbook of Apicius.
Broccoli was certainly an Italian vegetable, as its name suggests, long before it was eaten elsewhere. Its first mention in France is in 1560, but in 1724 broccoli was still so unfamiliar in England that Philip Miller's Gardener's Dictionary (1724 edition) referred to it as a stranger in England and explained it as "sprout colli-flower" or "Italian asparagus". In the American colonies, Thomas Jefferson was also an experimentative gardener with a wide circle of European correspondents, from whom he got packets of seeds for rare vegetables such as tomatoes, noted the planting of broccoli at Monticello along with radishes, lettuce, and cauliflower on May 27, 1767. Nevertheless, broccoli remained an exotic in American gardens.
During the sixteenth century, Broccoli was grown in Italy and France, but was not grown commercially in the United States until the 1920s.
Celery is believed to be originally from the Mediterranean basin. Ancient literature documents that celery, or a similar plant form, was cultivated for medicinal purposes before 850 B.C. It’s claimed medicinal purposes were probably attributable to it’s volatile oils, contained in all portions, but mostly the seed. During ancient times Ayurvedic physicians used celery seed to treat the following conditions: colds, flu, water retention, poor digestion, various types of arthritis, and liver and spleen ailments. Woven garlands of wild celery are reported to have been found in early Egyptian tombs.
Celery was considered a holy plant in the classical period of Greece and was worn by the winners of the Nemean Games, similar to the use of bay leaves at the Olympic Games. The Nemean Games were conducted every second year, starting in 573, in the small city of Nemea in southern Greece in the Poloponnes peninsula.
The Romans valued celery more for cooking than for religion although much superstition was connected with it. The celery plant was thought to bring bad fortune under certain circumstances.
Although celery is thought to be from the Mediterranean, indigenous "wild" relatives of celery are found in southern Sweden, the British Isles, Egypt, Algeria, India, China, New Zealand, California and southernmost portions of South America. However it is doubtful that it’s center of origin was that extensive.
The Italians domesticated celery as a vegetable in the 17th century resulting in selections with solid stems. Early stalk celery had a tendency to produce hollow stalks. After years of domestication, selection eliminated this characteristic as well as bitterness and strong flavors. Early growers found that the naturally strong flavors could be diminished if grown in cooler conditions and also if blanched. Blanching is the practice of pushing dirt up around the base of the stalks to prevent sunlight from turning the stalks green.
Currently California harvests about 23,500 acres per year, Florida 3,500 acres per year, Texas 1,200 acres per year, Michigan 3,000 acres per year, and Ohio less than 50 acres per year. California harvests year-round, Florida harvest from December to May, Texas from December to April, Michigan and Ohio from July thru September. Per capita consumption of celery is about 9 to 10 pounds per person annually.