Briefed to talk about the Columbian Exchange. But first, how do we choose vegetables.
1 What you can get. “In this climate, we grow grass, so we eat meat.”
2 Differentiating yourself from others. We used to eat quite a range of green things that we no longer eat, but that our anteriors would have known as they walked the lanes or gathered as they worked the fields.
3 Vegetarianism as an intellectual choice. You always find veg restaurants and wholefood shops in university cities. Falls into the need to feed the world, against the tide of those who want to eat meat. And meat-eaters win in battle. Ghandi, a vegetarian, knew that passive resistance was pretty much all you could do.
She grew up in South America so it “was sort of in my blood” understanding the vegetables that were there. In 1992, Expo Sevillia reconstructed the four little ships that went to the New World. She reads out the bill of lading.
Maize replaced chestnut woods back in Europe. The usual guff on the potato, being an acre of land and two weeks labour to feed a (large) household. “It was a pushover.”
Manioc, cassava, yam grow where neither maize nor potatoes will grow.
“Nebuchadnezzer ate grass. Is this an early reference to vegetarianism? No. It is a sign of madness.”
Hm, perhaps she needs to meet me. A content vegetarian who just so happens to be an army veteran and none too weak today, thank you very much. I don’t honestly know if her comment here is a joke or if she is serious.
You have been very prolific while I haven’t been checking my Google Reader!