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Oats – An Ancient Food Staple Brought To The New World By Early Settlers
- Oats grow naturally alongside wheat and barley. They were once considered weeds, but were then cultivated in 1,000 BCE.
- The ancient Greeks and Romans grew oats for animal feed.
- Oats became widely used in Great Britain and Scotland because they could ripen in the cold, wet climate.
- The Scottish Highlanders depended on oats as a staple of their diet.
- Oats came to America with the early colonists. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold first planted oats on the Elizabeth Islands off the Massachusetts coast.
- Oats were grown throughout colonial America and then spread west with the settlers.
- Quaker Oats Company created rolled oats in the late 19th century by steaming and rolling out the kernels. From there[,] many more recipes for breads and other baked goods were created using rolled oats.
Corn – A New World Food That Spread Around The Globe
- Corn cultivation as we know it today began in Central America as far back as 8,000 BCE. Indigenous peoples called the crop mahiz or maize meaning “source of life.” Domesticating the plant helped secure a steady food supply and turned Native American tribes from nomadic to agrarian societies.
- When Columbus landed in the West Indies, the Native Americans gave him mahiz to take home to Spain. From there it spread quickly throughout Europe and then the rest of the world.
- Etymologically, the word corn can be traced to an Indo-European word meaning ‘small nugget. The word evolved into the Germanic ‘korn’ which means any cereal grain and the Latin ‘granum’ (grain) which also refers to any edible grass seed.
- When English and German settlers arrived in the new world they referred to maize as "corn" referring to their generic term for an edible grass crop. They distinguished it from other grains by calling it "Indian corn."
- The earliest settlers in this country might not have survived their first winter if Native Americans hadn't given them corn to cook and eat. They also taught the colonists to grow corn by planting kernels along with small fish which fertilized the soil. Native Americans had numerous ways for preparing corn that they also shared with the settlers. They used corn in bread, porridge, soup, fried cakes, and pudding.
- From those early dishes some popular American dishes evolved including cornbread, hoecakes, johnnycakes, Indian pudding, creamed corn, succotash, and old fashioned buttered corn on the cob.
- The pecan is the only major tree nut that grows naturally in North America and is considered one of the most valuable North American nut species.
- The word "pecan" is of Algonquin origin meaning "any nut requiring a stone to crack.”
- Because wild pecans were readily available, many Native American tribes in North America and Mexico used the wild pecan as a major food source during autumn.
- There are over 1,000 varieties of pecans. Many are named for Native American Indian tribes, including Cheyenne, Mohawk, Sioux, Choctaw and Shawnee.
- Pecan trees are magnificent usually ranging in height from 70 to 100 feet and have trunks more than three feet in diameter.
- Spanish colonists began cultivating pecan trees in Northern Mexico in the late 1600’s.
- By the late 1700’s English colonists along the Atlantic seaboard were planting pecan trees in private gardens. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both cultivated the trees. Settlers also planted pecans in community gardens along the Gulf Coast.
- New Orleans became very important to the marketing of pecans. The city had a natural market as well as a waterway for redistributing pecans to other parts of the U.S. and the world.
- During the 1700’s and the early 1800’s, the pecan became an item of commerce for the American colonists and the pecan industry was born. In Texas the wild pecan harvest was more valuable than popular row crops like cotton.
- Today, about 80 percent of the world’s pecan crop comes from the US.
- April is National Pecan Month - a time to celebrate the "All American Nut" for its delicious taste and numerous health benefits.
* Source: NPSA National Pecan Shellers Association
