New World crops

Crops native to the New World

New World crops are those crops, food and otherwise, that are native to the New World (mostly the Americas) and were not found in the Old World before 1492 AD. Many of these crops are now grown around the world and have often become an integral part of the cuisine of various cultures in the Old World. Notable among them are the "Three Sisters": maize, winter squash, and climbing beans.

The new world developed agriculture by at least 8000 BC. The following table shows when each New World crop was first domesticated. + Timeline of cultivation Date Crops Location 8000 BCE Squash Oaxaca, Mexico 8000–5000 BCE Potato Peruvian and Bolivian Andes 6000–4000 BCE Peppers Bolivia 5700 BCE Maize Guerrero, Mexico 5500 BCE Peanut South America 5000 BCE Avocado Mexico c. 4200 BCE Sea island cotton Peru 4000 BCE Common bean Central America 3400 BCE Mexican cotton Tehuacan Valley, Mexico 3300 BCE Cocoa Ecuador 3000 BCE Sunflowers, other beans Arizona–New Mexico 1500 BCE Sweet potato Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia 500 BCE Tomato Mexico

The transfer of people, crops, precious metals, and diseases from the Old World to the New World and vice versa is called the Columbian Exchange. Food historian Lois Ellen Frank calls potatoes, tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, chili, cacao, and vanilla the "magic eight" ingredients that were found and used only in the Americas before 1492 and were taken via the Columbian Exchange back to the Old World, dramatically transforming the cuisine there. According to Frank,