I love to discover. Culture, geologic wonders, music, and food. That's a big reason why I travel...to learn, to see, to hear, to taste new things. And when two cultures meet, the discoveries usually go both ways. When the Spanish came to the Americas they found potatoes, chocolate, guinea pigs, and syphilis. The Indigenous Americans discovered horses, sugarcane, and smallpox.
This is called today the Columbian Exchange. Without it, the Italians wouldn't have polenta, the Hawaiians pineapple, the Indians red hot chili peppers, or French youths their tobacco. Nor would Argentina have any gauchos without the exchange. And Colombia, without bananas or coffee from the Old World, would be totally dependent on their coca industry.
During my own travels, I've discovered Nutella in Europe, red bean paste in Korea, dulce de leche from Argentina, and terere from Paraguay. On our first day in Colombia, I discovered a dozen wonderful fruits that I'd never seen before, such as lulo and guanabana.
But it just didn't seem right that I got to discover so much from the South Americans, but there was no exchange. They weren't making any cultural or culinary discoveries from me. I wanted to give them something from my culture, too, like the Spanish did 500 years earlier with pigeons, brown rats, artichokes, and bubonic plague.
And then, on my last visit to Mayapo beach, in La Guajira region, I was sitting at a table under a sombrilla with Pauline and some friends. Three older Wayuu women came up to us to try to sell us bracelets, of which we already had several each. We told them, "no, thanks," and they started to walk away until a shiny object of mystery caught one of the women's eyes. She approached the container, which glistened in the afternoon sun, with hungry curiosity, like a capybara. So we opened the jar, unveiled really, and offered her and her companions some of the chunky chunky peanut butter within. Now, peanut butter can be found in supermarkets in South America. But it's quite rare outside of the major cities and is prohibitively expensive for most people.
All three tasted. I could see that they were delightfully puzzled as they tried to pry the peanut butter from the roofs of their mouths. And like a conquistador planting a Spanish flag into foreign soil, one bold woman lunged forward and plunged two fingers into the highly viscous paste to get some more before traipsing away cackling. Discovery, indeed.
This is called today the Columbian Exchange. Without it, the Italians wouldn't have polenta, the Hawaiians pineapple, the Indians red hot chili peppers, or French youths their tobacco. Nor would Argentina have any gauchos without the exchange. And Colombia, without bananas or coffee from the Old World, would be totally dependent on their coca industry.
During my own travels, I've discovered Nutella in Europe, red bean paste in Korea, dulce de leche from Argentina, and terere from Paraguay. On our first day in Colombia, I discovered a dozen wonderful fruits that I'd never seen before, such as lulo and guanabana.
But it just didn't seem right that I got to discover so much from the South Americans, but there was no exchange. They weren't making any cultural or culinary discoveries from me. I wanted to give them something from my culture, too, like the Spanish did 500 years earlier with pigeons, brown rats, artichokes, and bubonic plague.And then, on my last visit to Mayapo beach, in La Guajira region, I was sitting at a table under a sombrilla with Pauline and some friends. Three older Wayuu women came up to us to try to sell us bracelets, of which we already had several each. We told them, "no, thanks," and they started to walk away until a shiny object of mystery caught one of the women's eyes. She approached the container, which glistened in the afternoon sun, with hungry curiosity, like a capybara. So we opened the jar, unveiled really, and offered her and her companions some of the chunky chunky peanut butter within. Now, peanut butter can be found in supermarkets in South America. But it's quite rare outside of the major cities and is prohibitively expensive for most people.
All three tasted. I could see that they were delightfully puzzled as they tried to pry the peanut butter from the roofs of their mouths. And like a conquistador planting a Spanish flag into foreign soil, one bold woman lunged forward and plunged two fingers into the highly viscous paste to get some more before traipsing away cackling. Discovery, indeed.
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