A lot of “traditional” national foods are like that, especially if you consider pre-columbian food traditions. If you just limit it to chocolate, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, potatoes, and beans, none of which were used or available in Europe until after importation, you see that it gets murky pretty quickly. Funny how we associate potatoes with Ireland, tomatoes with Italy, and chocolate with Switzerland when they’re actually all indigenous American foods.
A lot of “traditional” national foods are like that, especially if you consider pre-columbian food traditions. If you just limit it to chocolate, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, potatoes, and beans, none of which were used or available in Europe until after importation, you see that it gets murky pretty quickly. Funny how we associate potatoes with Ireland, tomatoes with Italy, and chocolate with Switzerland when they’re actually all indigenous American foods.
Beans are native to Europe.
One “bean” is native to Europe. The fava or horse bean to be specific.
Pretty shocking, eh?