It was first introduced to Europe by Christopher Columbus, who encountered it in the Caribbean in 1492. In less than 100 years, it spread as far east as China and was an essential crop in the Philippines and the East Indies. As a result, maize increased the quality of diets around Europe and the rest of the world.

Maize arrived in Africa in the 16th century. The path of Europe’s colonial conquests in that continent determined maize’s introduction to Africa. For example: when Spanish ships arriving in the Caribbean first encountered maize, especially red Spanish flint maize, varieties with striking red kernels then spread through Europe from Seville to Venice and then to Africa via Egypt. It then moved south and west to West Africa, following pilgrimage routes. Maize spread as a way to bolster the amounts of proteins and carbohydrates consumed around the world. 

Corn or maize is an entirely domesticated, modified species of grass. The words’ corn’ and ‘maize’ are often used interchangeably. ‘Maize’ is used to differentiate the starchier and more complex kernelled varieties known in South America, the Caribbean and Africa from ‘corn’: the sweeter, softer varieties favoured in Europe, the United States of America and Canada. They both originate from the same ancestral plant and are different primarily due to their growth. 

Corn is an ancient plant; the oldest evidence of corn pollen, around 80,000 years old, was found in Mexico City. Corn cobs (much like the ones we see today), located in bat-caves, have been dated approximately 5,500 years old!  

Trinbagonians embrace cassava as a local, nutritious and versatile tuber. It can be boiled, fried, roasted, milled or ground while still maintaining its nutrition profile. This root crop originated in the Americas and the Caribbean. However, it was only introduced to Africa by the Portuguese in the 1500s to be a famine-resistant crop.

Through interactions with the First Peoples in South and Central America and the Caribbean, the Portuguese learned that cassava could survive hotter and drier environments and pest and pathogen infections better than millet and yams, the pre-existing African food crops. With the introduction of the environment-sensitive maize to Africa, the spreading of cassava played an important famine-prevention role in Eastern and Southern Africa, where maize is the preferred food staple and drought is a recurring problem.

Did you know that sweet potatoes and white (Irish) potatoes are not from the same plant family? Instead, sweet potatoes are from the family of flowering plants that include morning glories, and potatoes are from the same family of plants that have tomatoes, the nightshade family. 

Sweet Potatoes are native to South and Central America and the Caribbean. They were grown in hurricane-affected areas to ensure that food was still available after destructive storms when they provided valuable energy and vitamins A and C to diets. Because sweet potatoes could be grown in soil that ranged from the mountainsides to the coastline, the Spanish and Portuguese carried them back to Europe in the late 1400s, where they transported supplies to the South Pacific in the 16th century. And later to Africa. 

White potatoes were also introduced to Europe by the Spanish and Portuguese and, by extension, the British (who seized potatoes from Spanish ships). Identified in the Andes Mountains in South America, potatoes were known to grow in colder conditions than sweet potatoes. Thus, the Spanish and Portuguese sailors carried these potatoes to grow in Europe, where there is less yearly sun and generally colder conditions than found in the tropics.

Potato distribution to other parts of the world happened during Europe’s colonial activities. Portuguese traders were the first to bring potatoes to India in the 1500s. Within about 200 years, they had spread all over India and then throughout the rest of Asia. North America received potatoes from England in 1621. Belgian missionaries carried potatoes to the Congo in the 1800s, where potatoes spread around Africa.