Dr. Michael Blake: : Hi, my name is Michael Blake. I'm an Archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology and the Laboratory of Archaeology here at UBC in Vancouver.
Text: Dr. Michael Blake, University of British Columbia
Dr. Michael Blake: Domestication really means the transformation of a plant or an animal from its wild state to a state where it's undergone genetic changes and transformations that usually make it more productive for the humans who have been interested in the plant or the animal.
Text: Domestication - A domesticated plant needs human intervention to reproduce.
Text: Gum - Gum is made from the juice of the sapodilla tree, which grows in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.
Dr. Michael Blake: Well, Latin America is famous for its domestication history because so many of the plants that we use today, that we take for granted today, were first used by Native Americans, native Mesoamericans, thousands and thousands of years ago, and we can name a few that are really common. Maize we've already talked about. So, corn, squash, beans. But others that people aren't so familiar with as new world domesticates, but were domesticated in Mexico, include plants like avocados, chocolate, chili peppers, tomatoes, and the list goes on.
Text: Pumpkin - Pumpkin is a fruit that is 90% water!
Text: Peanut - Peanuts were introduced into Africa by Portuguese slave traders.
Text: Corn - According to a Mayan myth, the first humans were created from a dough made of corn.
Text: Squash - Did you know that squash has been domesticated for almost 10,000 years?
Text: Tomato - Did you know that Europeans first thought tomatoes were poisonous.
Text: Avocado - The word avocado comes from the Aztec word "ahuacatl" which means "testicle".
Text: Chili Pepper - Did you know that fish can't taste the heat from chilis?
Dr. Michael Blake: Pretty much all of the foods that people domesticated early on in Latin America are used today. Other plants that were domesticated early on and that were to become extremely important in later times and particularly in modern times include plants like the potato. The potato was originally domesticated in South America and we know, and all of us are familiar with the fact, that potatoes are today one of the major food crops of the entire world.
Text: Vanilla - Vanilla is used to season fish soup in some Venezuelan dishes.
Text: Cashew - Even though cashews originated from South America, they are now mostly cultivated in Asia.
Text: Potato - Potatoes were used by the Incas to treat injuries and to help mothers during labour.
Text: Sunflower - The sunflower is the only plant that follows the movement of the sun before it blossoms.
Text: Why is it important to know where food comes from?
Dr. Michael Blake: Why is it important to know where foods come from? Well I think that we're all today concerned with food as something that we see as fundamental to our existence. Most of us today don't produce our own food. Well, that food comes from somewhere. And it's produced by people who are doing an absolutely essential part of your very existence. You wouldn't be able to exist. You couldn't live if people weren't producing that food.