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Amazingly, worldwide, all of humanity depend today on under 100
plants for food and almost none of the major food crops originated in temperate
North America. The Pre-Colombians in this region worked hard to get enough to
eat and often lived along coastlines for the seafood. It would have been very
difficult without the squash, beans and maize whose seeds had been imported from
Central America.
Produce that could have been served that first Thanksgiving
include:
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Fruit: crabapple, wild grape, beach plum (no apples, mangos,
peaches, pears, grapes, citrus, melons or bananas).
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Berries: cranberry, blueberry, elderberry, wild strawberry,
blackberry (no cherries, junipers, raspberries or olives)
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Nuts: hickory, hazelnut, chestnut, black walnut, pecan,
acorn (no walnuts, almonds, pistachios or peanuts)
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Roots: Jerusalem artichokes, cattail (no potatoes, carrots,
turnips, beets or onions)
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Seeds: wild rice, sunflower (no wheat, rye, oats, millet,
barley, soy, broad-beans, peas, chickpeas or rice)
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Other: seasonal greens, culinary and medicinal herbs,
mushrooms (no okra, lettuce, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels
sprouts, spinach, celery, peppers or cucumbers)
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Sweets: maple syrup (no sugar cane or honey)
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Southern imports: summer and winter squash, pumpkins, maize,
kidney-type beans (navy, kidney, pinto, yellow-eyed, great northern), string
beans.
Active humans of the time needed 2 or 3 times more calories than
we do. Yet, the available produce was labor intensive to harvest; there were few
high-carb plant foods; and the game and fish were mostly low fat. Maple sugar,
then, like the Southern imports, must have been a treasure beyond measure.
Meanwhile, the Pre-Colombian Meso-Americans had the fabled “fountain
of youth” (now called “antioxidants”). Depending on the region, they ate:
tomatoes, sweet onions, papayas, pineapples, avocados, cashews, brazil nuts,
maize, quinoa, lima beans, peanuts, kidney-type beans, string beans, vanilla,
cocoa, chili pepper, summer and winter squash, pumpkins, manioc, white potato,
sweet potato, and American wild bee honey. True gold.
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