SC - New World Foods-rant

[lilinah@earthlink.net]

lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
> 
> - and there must be a whole lot of indigenous
> fish...

Not all that many, actually. (He says, proceeding to come up with a long
list!) Most true trout are American, IIRC, except the brown trout, which
is really a variety of char? I believe the black bass and its relatives
such as the various sunfish and crappies are New World, and most of the
catfish. Things like eels, some of the salmon, shad, and the various
pike are either introduced from Europe, are anadrymous or its reversed
counterpart, in which a part of the life cycle is spent in the ocean and
a part in river estuaries, and so appear in both European and American
waters, or have close European counterparts.

Oh, and the blue crab... 
 
> nuts such as pecans, Brazil nuts, Macadamia nuts (cashews are Asian,
> peanuts aren't nuts), hmmm, filberts?

Cashews technically aren't nuts either. Filberts are hazelnuts, which
are/were found in Europe. An interesting reversal of the trend appears
with the American chestnut, which, IIRC, was destroyed by a blight
earlier in this century, and replaced since by European strains. Or do I
have that bass-ackwards? 
 
> chocolate
> 
> allspice, vanilla, ... (ok, help me here, folks, what other herbs and spices?)

Let's see. You mentioned chilies and other capsicums. A lot of the
ginseng used around the world is American. How about the cola nut and
things like sassafras? Maple sugar? And to the grainlike foods you can
add wild rice and, I think, buckwheat.
> 
> This is just a start, but i *think* i've covered some of the more
> common foodstuffs...

Fairly comprehensive, I'd say.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com