2021.09.22
The fact that corn, poatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and chocolate weren't encountered by Europeans until less than 400 years ago is astonishing.
Like white folks became so dependant on the hundreds of years of labor that Native Americans put into domesticating these crops and now they're so removed culturally from their origins that they've become inherant parts of white culture.
When you think of tomatoes do you think of Mexican, or Italian food? When you think of potatoes can you picture the Quechua or Ireland and the UK, Russia, France maybe? Does chocolate make you think of Belgian and Swiss truffles, or Olmec cacao?
Pumpkin may be the oldest domesticated plant but it doesn't evoke images of the ancient Native peoples of the southern US. It's white girls with pumpkin spice lattes and white mom's pumpkin pie.
I don't really know where I'm going with this but it makes me feel things