Foods, and ways of preparing foods, cross and recross the globe. It's a story, not so much of "mother cuisines," as of dramatic, and much more subtle, movements of people from place to place.
Each Daily Cuppa Go post is like a daily newspaper to enjoy with your favorite cuppa. There's a series of related stories on a theme, and just like a newspaper, you can browse as your time and interests lead you.
Taken together, today's post offers a pretty fair overview of the roots of world food cultures and cuisines, and how these have been shaped by the global movements of people and power. Choose your interest and explore!
Silk Road Cooking: A Culinary Journey - From China to Persia to the Mediterranean, many vegetables, fruits, grains, and seasonings -- and the techniques for cooking them -- passed from one civilization to another, to be absorbed and transformed into local specialties.
Culinary Colonialism, or, Pour Quoi Bánh Mì? - How potatoes got to Ireland, tomatoes to Italy, chilis to India, and other consequences of conquest.
The Mother of Cuisines - One doesn't have to get hung up on the idea of Persian food as a "mother cuisine" to find the story of how the iconic foods of Mexico and India connect through Persia fascinating.
Explore Chinese Cuisines - Yes, there's a lot more to Chinese food than you might think. Explore the amazing history.
Righting Culinary Injustice - How did African slaves play a key role in making the Americas "a culinary cornucopia unknown anywhere else in the world, where foods from Africa, the Americas, Eurasia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia met?"
Indigenous Foodways, Past and Present - In this 75-minute video, Indigenous scholars discuss the history of Indigenous food systems, the impact of colonization on foodways and diet, and what can be learned from Indigenous food knowledge and culture. Of related interest: Rations for All: The Impact of Conquest and Colonization on Native Food and Food Culture. The photos in Rations for All are haunting and well illustrate the impact of colonization on food systems.
