Megan Do

Johnson
A. History
Social Studies Fair Outline
Affects of European Exploration on World Cuisine
Outline

I. Potatoes
a. Crossed the Atlantics
b. Legends of who introduced the potato to Europe
i. Sir Francis Drake in 1580
ii. Another is that ships of the Spanish Armada, wrecked off the Irish
coast in 1588, were carrying potatoes and that some of these
washed ashore.
iii. Sir Walter Raleigh for having the first potatoes planted in Ireland
on his estate at Youghal in County Cork.
c. Native Americans fed it to the slaves.
d. Grown in Spain by the 1670s. It was a long time before the potato became
established in continental Europe, but it was quickly adopted in Ireland.
e. 1900s- Russia was among the world’s leading producers of potatoes
II. Tomatoes
a. Used to be called love-apples or golden apple
b. In 1492 Columbus made his first landfall in the New World, they
discovered of the tomato plant
c. The first tomato plants to be taken to Europe were believed to come from
Mexico
d. By 1700 Europeans had even taken the tomato as far as China, South and
South East Asia
e. The tomato was conspicuously slow to be adopted in Europe
III. Vanilla
a. Hernando Cortés and his 500 men invaded Mexico in 1519 they were
captivated by the appetizingly spicy taste of the strange beverage that was
alien to their own culture.
b. The soldiers couldn’t resist taking the ingredients and some of the vanilla
orchids back home
c. Also, chocolate was also introduced into Europe
d. the Spaniards kept their discovery of vanilla secret for almost half a
century
e. Travelers took chocolate into England in 1650 that knowledge of vanilla
quickly spread across Europe.
IV. Maize
a. October 16, 1492, European eyes fell fro the first time on maize, fields of
maize.
b. It was called Haiti, and the Europeans were crew members on Christopher
Columbus’s ships.
c. They explored in northeastern Cuba they came upon advanced farming
and friendly people.
d. They presented them with gifts including ears or maize or corn
Megan Do
Johnson
A. History
Social Studies Fair Outline
V. Chilies
a. Columbus carried specimens of the new pepper back to the Iberian
Peninsula
b. From there, it spread rapidly around the globe
c. It changed and enhanced the cuisines of every land it touched, today it’s
the most widely used spice in the world
VI. Chocolate
a. First, the ancient Aztecs and Mayas of South America have been eating
chocolate
b. The evidence we have (from records of the Spanish conquistadors) is that
they ground cocoa beans into a meal, mix them with water, cornmeal,
chilies, cinnamon, anise seed, and other spices. The drink was served cold,
and unsweetened.
c. The cocoa tree became known to the Europeans after Christopher
Columbus' fourth voyage to the new world in 1502.
d. Columbus himself is not reported to have enjoyed chocolate in this form,
but brought some back to Spain anyway.
e. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella didn't care much for it either, and
dismissed it as a bizarre native drink.
f. The Aztec ruler Montezuma mistook Cortez for Quetzalcoatl. Montezuma
threw a feast for Cortez and his soldiers. It was at this feast that Cortez
was introduced to chocolate, also in spicy liquid form. All the cocoa beans
consumed by the Aztecs were grown on the Yucatan peninsula by the
Mayas, who were subjects of the Aztecs by 1200 A.D.
g. Cortez learned that the Aztecs treated cocoa beans as a form of currency,
and that the Aztecs demanded taxes levied upon their subjugated tribes to
be paid in the form of cocoa beans. Having learned that in the new world
money really did grow on trees, Cortez started to cultivate cocoa
plantations
h. About 20 years after Columbus introduced chocolate unsuccessfully to the
Spanish court, it appeared again with much better results. The difference
was that sugar imported from the East Indies and Vanilla from Mexico
was added.
i. This time, the court was so taken with the drink that they kept it as their
own culinary secret for as long as possible.
VII. Pineapples
a. Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Guadeloupe
b. A party of his men returned to his ship with pineapples
c. Later, the Portuguese took the fruits from Brazil to their other colonies
d. Large pineapple plantations were established in South America, Hawaii,
Formosa, the Philippines, and Australia
VIII. Peanuts