Food is a part of every important experience.
Food isn’t just the fuel that keeps the human body going, it is the stuff that most meaningful memories are centred around. Family lunches, coffee with friends, that unforgettable date – see? Food is a part of every important experience. But that is just the benevolent aspect of food’s influence. It can just as well trigger revolutions and transport cultures. In my previous article I discussed 3 foods that changed history, following are 4 more such foods with their own remarkable stories.
Coffee
The most preferred drink after tea was first discovered in A.D. 800 in Ethiopia.The stimulating effects of caffeine quickly made coffee a cash crop that had imperial powers from the west soon fighting over the land. In more modern times coffee provided fuel to workers at ammunition factories to last their long, monotonous shifts during the world wars. Today, the coffee industry is the main source of income for 25 million small farmers across the world.
Beans
Beans are grown and eaten all over the world. They are members of the legume family, protein-rich and low-cost. In the 19th century as farming saw a surge a new social hierarchy came into play. Those that could afford meat were one higher than those who could not. Those on the lower rung used beans to meet their protein requirements. In more recent history, during World War 2 beans were canned and dropped in battlefields via planes to feed the fighting armies.
Milk
Dairy is a universal agricultural production: people use milk in every country across the world, and have done since the beginning of civilization. The Egyptians held the cow sacred and worshipped her as the goddess of agriculture. Today, milk is a vital part of the global food system and it plays a key role in the sustainability of rural areas in particular. An estimated one billion people across the world live on dairy farms.
Spices
Pepper was once so valuable that it could be used to pay the rent. Five centuries ago it drove imperialists to sail across the vast oceans in search for new routes to the spice-rich Orient. Spices didn’t just make merchants rich across the globe,they lead to the establishment of vast empires, exposed entire continents to European imperialism and changed the power dynamics of the world. If there is a time in human history that can be marked as the beginning of the modern age, it is the beginning of the spice trade. The world economy saw its first taste of globalization and what a flavorful taste it was.
