I was just wondering this today. Many of the crops that I eat like rice, corn, potatoes, quinoa, Yucca/Cassava are all New World food and are eaten throughout the world. Many of these crops were eaten by the indigenous peoples before European Colonization and the global trade markets. I can't really think of any staple food that was grown in Europe besides bread.
Anybody know what people in Europe were eating before the discovery of the Americas by Columbus? I know that there is food thats considered 'old world' but I never see any foods that are high in carbs like rice or a potato.
I can't really think of any staple food that was grown in Europe besides bread.
In most of Europe, the carb crops were wheat, barley, oats, and rye, with wheat and barley most important in the south, and oats and rye becoming more important in northern Europe. Bread was important, but not the only way these cereal grains were eaten. These grains were also eaten as beer, porridge, in soups, as pasta/noodles, dumplings, etc. The carb-component of the pre-Columbian diet in Europe provided the bulk of the calories for most people.
In parts of northern Europe (and northern Asia), buckwheat was an important carb. Buckwheat isn't a cereal, but is used in similar ways in the diet.
Rice was eaten in Mediterranean Europe - rice is a pre-Columbian Old World crop, which spread from East Asia and/or SE East Asia and/or South Asia to Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean (there was also an independent domestication of a different rice species in West Africa).
Root crops such as turnips, beets, parsnips, etc. also contributed carbs to the diet, but were usually much less important than bread and other forms of cereal. When cereal crops failed, root crops could sometimes substitute, helping keep people alive during a hungry year. This even happened in modern history, such as the winter of 1916/1917 in Germany - this was known as the "Turnip Winter" (Steckrübenwinter) when the combination of poor harvest of cereal crops and the Allied naval blockade of Germany left many Germans with little option other than to eat the turnips which were usually used to feed livestock.
While maize has partly replaced rice, wheat, and barley around the Mediterranean, rice and wheat remained important. Rice (including dishes such as paella, risotto, and pilaf), pasta, and wheat/barley flatbreads and non-flat breads remain important or even dominant in much of the Mediterranean area.
Potatoes are now eaten over much of Europe. In the south, they typically became another vegetable among many. In the north, they often became the new staple carb, especially for the poor. Where the potato now dominates, bread - once the king of the table - has been mostly relegated to toast and sandwiches for breakfast, light lunches, and snacks. Bread still makes a mostly-ceremonial appearance at formal meals, in the form of a small dinner roll on a side plate.