Funny/Stupid Question............ Where did Veggies come from?

[Chickerdoodle13]

mom'sfolly :

Europeans thought tomatoes were toxic, the people who grew them originally did not.

I actually wonder more about the first person who looked at a raw oyster, and thought "Gee, maybe I can eat that nasty phlegm ball".

They thought they were toxic because of the lead plates they used to eat off of. The acid from the tomato would react with the lead and it killed many people!​

 

[welsummerchicks]

"the Jerusalem part I'm not sure about"

It is 'girasol' mispronounced, I think. Girasol = the jerusalem artichoke sunflower, or generally, sunflower, from girare, to revolve, sol, sun.

I think all vegetables and grains were originally wild plants, but were selected and bred and developed for better characteristics. I think tomatoes and potatoes and peppers came from South America and I think each veggie came from some specific place originally. I know there are some fruits in S America that haven't spread far from home like the cherimoya (YUM).

 

[harleyhappy]

Quote:
most broccoli for the us market is grown in california's san joaquin valley and trucked to the rest of the country. therefore, if you live in the rest of the country, you are unlikely to have seen it growing. i don't know about carrots, but i suspect some of the popular "baby carrots" are hydroponic these days. both broccoli and carrots are very easy to grow in your home garden and taste much better than the supermarket versions.

 

[debilorrah]

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Grape tomatoes are my FAVORITE!!!!

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
They thought they were toxic because of the lead plates they used to eat off of. The acid from the tomato would react with the lead and it killed many people!

Yep that is correct!!!

I would like someone to explain the evolution of corn to me. Since it is now 100% genetically modified, I wonder what it looked like before man started messin with it.

And I am gonna puke if I hear that STUPID snuggie commerical one more time

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Debi,

Here's a good picture to show you the stages in evolution of corn! Wild maize hardly looked like our corn at all!

Wild Maize

 

[debilorrah]

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It appears that Ken is right. There was no such thing as corn way back at Plymouth Rock.

 

[Tala]

Quote:
My dad always said it was basically grass seed, until humans started "breeding" it to get the desired effects

A lot of plants have the flower or seed parts designed to be eaten, and they are supposed to attract animals to eat them so that the seeds will pass through digestion and be deposited elsewhere to grow (and the pile of fertilizer didn't hurt either!)
Humans took advantage of that and started growing plants to produce bigger "seed pods" if you will

That's how I understand it anyway. Plant taxonomy was a fun and interesting class, but I had to drop it because I took it over a summer course and I couldn't keep up with all the memorization!