Foods That Changed The World

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Food is exciting, and there's no doubt it's a huge part of our lives. That's why we love making it, sharing it, and even documenting it with photographs and on social media. It brings us together and, at the most basic, it keeps us alive. Sure, that's all very impressive, but it's tough to imagine that sometimes, certain foods have an even bigger story to tell. Some foods made such a big impact, they actually changed the world.

It might be something we tend to take for granted, but some foods were so remarkable that when they were introduced, they changed the course of history for entire countries, continents, and civilizations. Let's look at the foods that have done just that. Some of them you might never have heard of, while others will probably be a lot more familiar — some of them might even be on the menu for dinner tonight. 

Garum is one of the world's oldest condiments, and while it's not around in its original form anymore, National Geographic says we have a version in today's fish sauce. It was a staple of Roman cuisine, was made with fermented fish guts and salt, and was used straight, in cooking, or even medicinally.

It sounds disgusting, but it was insanely popular. Garum was in such high demand in the ancient Roman world that it helped drive the creation of major trade networks. Coastal cities were built around fisheries and fish processing factories, which were outfitted with everything from fishing boats to massive storage facilities for fermentation vats. These original cities were situated along the Mediterranean coast and the migratory paths of the fish, and the outposts were then connected by land and sea routes opened for garum trade. Eventually, that helped form the backbone of the massive Roman Empire, with branches of the network reaching as far as Hadrian's Wall.

Do you love seafood? If you do, you have something in common with our most ancient ancestors — and it's a love that may have allowed those same ancestors to thrive where their Neanderthal cousins died.

Science is still trying to figure out exactly what gave Homo sapiens an original leg up, but according to researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (via New Scientist), our ancestors may have increased their likelihood of survival by looking to the sea. Tens of thousands of years ago, Neanderthals are thought to have survived mainly on big game animals. A study of ancient sites and bones dating back 40,000 years showed Homo sapiens, on the other hand, were also fishing in both marine and freshwater environments. When the major food sources of the Neanderthals started down the path of extinction, we had other options. It's probably not the only reason Homo sapiens survived (and there are some signs Mediterranean populations of Neanderthals ate things like dolphin), but it's likely one of the things that gave us a major advantage.

It's impossible to imagine what the world would look like without potatoes, because there's a shocking number of times they've helped shape history. The Inca had been growing potatoes for generations (via Sploid), and when explorers brought the lowly tater back to Europe, it was a game-changer. Potatoes are a massive, hardy crop that can feed a ton of people, and the Smithsonian says newly planted potato crops not only ended European famines, but they also allowed countries to feed larger and larger populations. In turn, that gave them an increased labor pool, bigger military might, and an advantage during industrialization.

An over-reliance on the potato has certainly brought famine, too, but it's brought a few other things. When potatoes first made the journey across the Atlantic, they brought with them what would be our first major fertilizer: guano from Peru. Fast forward a bit, and potatoes were also at the heart of a complete overhaul of 20th century agriculture. When potato beetles started destroying crops in the US, farmers started scrambling. That kick-started the modern pesticide industry, and by the 1950s the face of farming had changed — again, all because of the tater.

Believe it or not, entire books could be written on the way bananas changed history. At least one has: Dan Koeppel's Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. Koeppel says (via Salon) that even though we've been eating bananas for around 7000 years, it's really with the 19th century that things started to change in a big and bloody way.

When the banana industry was consolidated, it was under the umbrella of United Fruit (which later bacme Chiquita). Koeppel says it was one of the first multinational companies, and from seed to shelf, the industry that grew up around bananas shaped Latin America. In 1911, a new government was installed in Honduras. It was United Fruit that put them there, after the corporation was crossed by the previous government. That happened a lot, strangely, at the same time the corporation was clearing jungle, uncovering Mayan ruins, building railroads, exiling dictators, and toppling entire countries. Koeppel says Big Banana was every bit as ruthless as Big Oil, and they weren't even above slaughtering hundreds of workers who dared to strike. They did that, too.

According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute (via Slate), there's one sure-fire way to tell just how close a society is to outright revolt: watch the price of grain. It sounds strange, but rising bread prices and shortages have led to outright revolts before, most famously during the 1789 French Revolution. Bread wasn't the only factor, says the Smithsonian, but it was the major trigger that caused the French public to revolt against and finally overthrow their ruling class.

It happened again in 1795, when bad weather and poor harvests caused a nationwide bread shortage in Britain. Blackwell Reference says there were at least 74 riots across the country, all within a year. And in the US, the Richmond Bread Riot broke out against the backdrop of the Civil War. Virginia had been pushed to famine, and History says that when they marched on the Capitol, they marched for "bread and justice." When their demands were ignored, their rallying cry turned into "bread or blood," and a city full of angry, hungry people looted Richmond.

Honey seems like the last thing you'd expect to be able to stop the relentless onward march of the Roman army, but in the first century, it did exactly that. When the people of what's now Turkey's Black Sea region were faced with the inevitability of falling to Roman rule, they decided to make use of a special kind of honey the region is known for. Modern Farmer says it's called mad honey, and it's made with rhododendron nectar. Eat it in a high enough dose, and you'll start getting blurry vision and the occasional hallucinations, and that's exactly what happened to the Roman troops after they ate the honeycombs the Turkish peoples had left in their path.

The terrifying Roman army was swallowed by the drowsy, hallucinogenic stupor of the honey, and was completely trounced. If you're ever in the neighborhood, you can still get mad honey there — it's still produced in the same region, and in small doses, it's said to give a pleasant sort of high. Eat too much, and it's poison.

According to the BBC, we've been farming corn for around 5000 years. Early corn looked quite a bit different than the sweet corn you might pick up at the farmers' market today, and you can thank our ancient ancestors next time you shuck an ear.

Those ancient ancestors laid the groundwork for domesticating crops around 9000 years ago, when they started selectively growing and planting grasses. Early corn only had a few hard kernels, but throughout the generations they were able to selectively breed corn into what we have today — and that's a huge deal, partially because it proved we could do it.

Columbus took corn back to Europe, but it was never the hit there that it was in America. In the US, it shaped more than diet: it was a currency. Corn paid for slaves, and, The Washington Post says, it's also used for animal feed and fuel. Less than 10 percent of all the corn grown is eaten by people, and that means a world without corn is pretty unthinkable.