available to any single culture In the Western world, fruit has been eaten as dessert at least since the Greeks; recognizable salads go back to the Middle Ages, and boiled vegetables in delicate sauces to 17th-century France Prehistory and Early Civilizations Many plants came under human cultivation by the unsophisticated but slowly effective means of gathering useful plants and leaving a few seeds in fertile refuse heaps Judging from archaeological evidence, early Europeans seem to have relied on wheat, fava beans, peas, turnips, onions, radishes, and cabbage In Central America, corn, beans, hard squashes, tomatoes, and avocados were staples around 3500 BCE, while Peruvian settlements relied heavily on the potato Northern Asia started with millets, cabbage relatives, soybeans, and tree fruits in the apple and peach families; southern Asia had rice, bananas, coconuts, yams, cabbage relatives, and citrus fruits Indigenous African crops included related but distinct millets, sorghum, rice, and bananas, as well as yams and cowpeas Mustard seed flavored foods in Europe and in Asia, where ginger may also have been used Chilli “pepper” was probably the chief spice in the Americas By the time of the earliest civilizations in Sumer and Egypt about 5,000 years ago, most of the plants native to that area and eaten today were already in use (see box, p 250) Trade between the Middle East and Asia is also ancient Egyptian records of around 1200 BCE document huge offerings of cinnamon, a product of Sri Lanka Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages With the Greeks and Romans we begin to see the outlines of modern Western cuisine The Greeks were fond of lettuce, and habitually ate fruit at the end of meals Pepper from the Far East was in use around 500 BCE and ... Middle Ages With the Greeks and Romans we begin to see the outlines of modern Western cuisine The Greeks were fond of lettuce, and habitually ate fruit at the end of meals Pepper from the Far East... today were already in use (see box, p 250) Trade between the Middle East and Asia is also ancient Egyptian records of around 1200 BCE document huge offerings of cinnamon, a product of Sri Lanka Greece, Rome, and the. .. Chilli “pepper” was probably the chief spice in the Americas By the time of the earliest civilizations in Sumer and Egypt about 5,000 years ago, most of the plants native to that area and eaten today were already in use (see box, p