Curated playlist
Crops originating from indigenous Americans
- TomatoIn 1893, the US Supreme Court ruled the tomato a vegetable. Botanically, it is a fruit, a berry.
- PapayaPapaya's white sap can tenderize meat, but it also stops jelly from setting. The enzyme papain is the reason.
- PotatoMore than 99% of modern potato varieties come from Chile's lowlands, not Peru's highlands.
- CassavaCassava, a staple for over 800 million people, can kill if prepared badly. Raw roots contain toxic cyanide compounds.
- Cocoa beanThe cocoa bean, the dried and fermented seed of the cacao tree, once paid for rabbit dinners in Mesoamerica. Before the Spanish conquest, it served as common money across the region. Beans bought small items such as tamales and rabbit…
- BlueberryEvery commercial blueberry in the world comes from a plant native to North America. Peru is now among the top growers.
- PeanutThe peanut, Arachis hypogaea, buries its own fruit, and its Latin species name means "under the earth." In 2023 the world produced 54 million tonnes of peanuts, with China supplying 36 percent of the total and India 19 percent. The plant…
- Theobroma cacaoTheobroma cacao is a tree that produces thousands of flowers and surprisingly little fruit. A mature tree may open 6,000 blossoms in a single year. Only about 20 of them mature into pods. Those few pods hold the seeds that become…
- CocaCoca is a shrub native to western South America, and one of the oldest clues to its history was found in the floors of ancient houses in Peru's Nanchoc Valley. Archaeologists recovered coca leaves there together with calcite, which shows…
- VanillaVanilla, the flavor behind countless cakes, ice creams and perfumes, owes its place in the world to a 12-year-old boy on the island of Réunion. His name was Edmond Albius, and he was enslaved. In 1841 he worked out how to pollinate the…