Who Were “The Taste Makers”

The name "Taste Makers" didn't come to me in a flash. My mother was a good cook, and so I thought all food tasted good. Later in high school and college I began to eat in cafeterias and discovered that not all food tastes delicious. When I became a homemaker I bought cookbooks to master French and Italian cuisine, to explore such dishes as Asian satays, and to learn about our own distinctive southern recipes. Along the way I discovered that every ingredient can play many roles. A potato can be peasant fare, or it can be haute cuisine.

 Ninety percent of the food we eat comes from plants, directly from the soil or from the herbivores who eat grasses and grains. Before a plant becomes a savory dish it needs to be identified as edible, not toxic, and it needs to be domesticated, sown, harvested and perhaps modified. All this must take place before a recipe can be written and a dinner served.

 Who started such an elaborate undertaking and brought us such variety in food? To find the answer we must go back about 12,000 years to the nomadic hunters who followed herds of huge beasts across a land bridge from Siberia to the Americas. At the outset the hunters found unwary prey and hunting was easy and adequate for their needs. The women on the other hand must have been dismayed to discover that the plants in the New World were different from any they had encountered in the old country, and they had to learn which ones were good to eat and how to prepare them.

 As populations grew and prey became scarce, the nomads were forced to settle down and plant seeds to provide food. These early agriculturists survived, but it took thousands of years for them to learn how to cultivate corn, potatoes, tomatoes and other nutritious foods. Generation after generation expanded the American menu, and in 1492 when Columbus arrived on a Caribbean island he found a robust people who could entertain him with a hearty feast.

 It was the chili pepper that persuaded Columbus that he had found India. Later voyagers knew better. The European explorers who sought gold and silver brought cattle and wheat to the New World. They returned to their homelands laden with corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chilies and other foods which eventually proved to be more precious than gold. This transfer, sometimes called the Columbian exchange, revolutionized the way people eat in Europe and the Americas. The world's food resources were enormously increased; peasants had more to eat, aristocrats dazzled their guests with new dishes! Each country adapted the new food to suit its taste, its resources and its culture.

 New World foods now constitute 62% of the world's total food consumption, and the New World pioneers who domesticated and cultivated unknown plants that have traveled around the world deserve to be called "The Taste Makers."