Jillian Henderson

Making the Mediterranean

October 13, 2015

Week 1 Questions

            The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of diseases, ideas, food, crops, and populations between the New and Old World.  This trading system had both positive and negative effects; new ideas and goods were spread around the world, but so were diseases that wiped out massive parts of the population.  Initially, the Old World seemingly offered a better selection of domesticated animals and the New World had a better source of crops such as potatoes, maize, cassava, coffee, and sugar.  The New World had amazing plantations that grew tobacco, cocoa, and most importantly, sugar, which until previously, before the discovery of America, was very rare and expensive, saved only for the elites in society of the Old World.  The sugar plantations in America were originally supposed to be looked after by the Amerindians, but 80-95% of the population was decimated after the smallpox epidemic made its way from the Old World to the New World along with measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, the bubonic plague, and malaria.  This ultimately ended in the slave trade, where between the 16^th and 19^th centuries, nearly 12 million African Americans were forced to come to the New World and work on the plantations against their will-they were simply property and could be treated however the landowners saw fit.  In this way, the Columbian Exchange left behind racism, which continues to be seen to this day.

            Another very important crop that made its way to Europe was the tomato.  Today there are many varieties such as schiacciato, globoso, and pretto, but before they became a staple in the Italian and Mediterranean diet, they were thought to be poisonous.  Initially, the peasants of Southern Italy who did not have a choice to eat anything other than vegetables ate tomatoes for sustenance, and tomatoes were used in the act of pomodorata where people would throw tomatoes in a display of disapproval.  However, in the 18^th century, new medical ideas and advances proved that tomatoes were safe to eat cooked and were not a risk to ones health and they began to gain popularity and were seen in Letini, Murillo, Gaudintino, and Corrado’s cookbooks and recipes.  These chefs and writers were becoming more interested in the flavor of foods instead of the previously existing rules of what foods should or should not be combined.  Sardinians were the first people to take the use of the tomato seriously, and from there it slowly became a very important part of many people’s diets.  While I am not a fan of tomatoes, I tried one for the first time in years for this assignment,-just a slice of my roommate’s large, globoso, red tomato-and it tasted very acidic and bold, a combination I was not a big fan of.

            While I do not like plain tomatoes, I enjoy it in tomato sauce-specifically in pizza.  Considering the fact that I associated pizza with Italy, it is strange to me that it has a very rocky history here.  Initially, pizza was popular in Naples, but there was a much different response from the Romans upon its introduction.  Only the poor people would eat pasta as they sat on the ground, and the pizza would rot throughout the day and be sold for cheaper prices as they got worse by the nighttime.  Pizza was described as almost vile, which is strange considering today you walk through Italy and see pizzerias very often, and some places such as Gusta Pizza and their heart shaped pizzas are even world renowned.