Rachel Laudan

Happy Christmas to all and especially to all those who have commented on my blog this year. Just yesterday Sra Cruz Reyes Ramos sent me this wonderful story about pinole (toasted maize ground to a flour) as a Christmas treat.  I’ll leave it with you. When I was about 4 yrs old ( I distinctly [...]

Caption: These are Middle Stone Age food processing tools recovered from the Ngalue cave site, Mozambique. Credit: Grady Semmens, University of Calgary Usage Restrictions: None It used to be the story that farming and grain eating came along together 10,000 years or so ago. Then evidence of grass seed use in Israel and of granaries [...]

From Ken Albala Rachel, You’re right about immediate impact, it takes several centuries for New World plants to really transform Europe – eventually they do. But more interesting is the impact in Asia and Africa. Here I think you could make an argument – with chilies most clearly, but also with corn and the big [...]