Foods Around The World

Every person all over the world must have food to live, but eating can also be one of the great pleasures of life.

Think of slices of a delicious, juicy, red-ripe, home-grown tomato smothered with milk gravy. On the side, is a cathead biscuit that will just about melt in your mouth. Surely, thinking of that will make anyone hungry.

Food gives us energy to live

We all have to have food to live; it gives us energy to go about our daily lives. All food that we eat comes from plants or animals.

Foods around the world

There are millions of people throughout Asia who eat little but rice. In some parts of the Orient, people make a flour out of dried grasshoppers. A type of bread, called the baguette is very popular in France. Beet soup is called borscht in Russia. In certain areas of Iran, sheep eyes are considered a delicacy.

History of Tomatoes

Now, back to those delectable tomatoes. The tomato is native to South America. Cortez brought tomato seeds to Spain in 1519, and European colonists brought seeds to America when Jamestown was settled in the early 1600s.

The tomato was first grown here for decoration. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first Americans to eat tomatoes. Eating tomatoes became popular after the Civil War, but their popularity soared when Joseph Campbell made condensed tomato soup in the 1890s. Also, tomatoes became widely accepted for canning about that time.

History of Important Food Crops

Corn is the most valuable crop grown around the world. Many food products are made from corn. The crop was called maize by the Indians and was already being grown here when the first American settlers arrived. The crop was so important to these early settlers that it was sometimes used as money.

Wheat is grown throughout many parts of the world. The most valuable part of the wheat kernel is the endosperm. This is the part that makes wheat superior over all other grain in making bread. The Euphrates River in Iraq is believed to be where the earliest wheat was grown. Many food products are made from wheat.

Rice has a long history of being the main food crop for about half of the world’s population. It is eaten at every meal in many parts of Asia. Rice came to America in 1685, when the captain of a ship from Madagascar gave the governor of the colony of South Carolina a sack of seeds. Many alcoholic beverages throughout the world are made from rice.

One of the world’s most widely grown vegetables is the potato. First grown in South America, potatoes were brought to Europe in the middle 1500s, and later brought to America by early settlers.

Food From Animals

Every kind of animal is eaten for food over the world. In the United States, cattle and hogs are the primary meat sources for most people. Milk produced by dairy cows is considered one of the healthiest foods. Hogs are made into sausage, bacon, tenderloin, and many other products. It can be said that every part of a cow or hog is used in some way.

Goats rank second only to cattle as suppliers of milk. The meat from goats is a staple for many people. The consumption of chicken has increased greatly and eating eggs is now looked upon favorably by most health experts. Fish come from every kind of body of water in the world. And, no one knows how many people eat fish on a daily basis because the numbers would be staggering.