What was Indian and Italian food like before the introduction of American ingredients such as tomatoes, chillies and potatoes?

The concept of national cuisines – ‘Indian’ or ‘Italian’, for instance – did not really exist before the 19th century. What we can say, though, is that Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492 had lasting ramifications for diets across the world. Before so-called ‘new world’ crops came into circulation, Italians ate grains, olives and locally available fruit and vegetables, while Indians also ate a diet of foods grown in local soils.

For most of us, Italy is synonymous with big bowls of pasta coated in tomato-based sauces. Yet Professor David Gentilcore has found that it took about 300 years after its arrival in Europe for the tomato to become a staple of diets there, while Professor Massimo Montanari tells us that before the 1830s pasta was eaten “with the hands and without any condiment, or only with a little grated cheese”.

If we imagine India, we probably think about spicy chillies forming the basis of delicious curries, but, like tomatoes, they only slowly made it around the globe after Columbus’s voyage. In India, black peppercorns and mustard seed were among the spices used in local cuisines, until the Portuguese brought chillies to India in the 16th century. Chillies were important not only in India but also, for example, in Korea (kimchi) and in Hungary (paprika).

However, it was the high calorie staples that had the biggest impact, allowing for population growth and economic advances. Calorie-rich potatoes, which could be grown in previously unusable soil in Europe, made the biggest impact, along with other important staples such as sweet potatoes, maize and cassava.