Connecting the dots through food

One of the most interesting things I have discovered while putting this project together is the interconnection of seemingly diverse ethnic groups when it comes to food.

Now if you are a student of history or humanity, you may already know this.
Even though I knew the basic history of many of the world regions I was still struck by how closely connected some of the food is.

Let me give you an example. We have a contributor who is Moroccan. As she and I sat transcribing hundreds of recipes I got a flash back to the list from our contributor from Argentina. The common thread lentils. Both have a recipe for a lentil dish, but so do our cookbook contributors from Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

The lentil connection amongst the hispanic cuisines was not a surprise, but connecting the americas to North Africa was.

While all of them have their own unique ways to cook and present lentils, I can't help but wonder how many of you would have expected to have this one ingredient span the Atlantic Ocean.

If you were surprised, maybe you are interested in how it happened.

Let's take a short walk back in history. Most of you have no doubt at least heard of the Spanish Inquisition, right? Well during the period that Spain was casting off its "undesirables" many Sephardic Jews (Andalusian Jews) took the boat, literally, to North Africa. Along with their world possessions they took the cuisine of Spain just as the conquistidors brought it to Central and south America.

And so you have lentils in these seemingly diverse cuisines.

Later in our journey we'll be giving you more short history lessons and connecting more dots through food. So stay with us, and if you have another surprising food connection that you'd like to share please feel free to comment on our blog. We'd love to hear from you.