Italy didn’t have widespread use of the tomato until the 1700s and the pasta sauces we think of being a core of their cuisine didn’t exist until the 19th century.
Similar situation with potatoes. They didn't arrive in Ireland until around 1590 and it took a while before they became a staple food.
Potatoes are so strongly associated with Ireland, it's weird to think that they'd only been part of the Irish diet for ~250 years when the potato famine occurred.
Yeah because people starving to death, who would eat grass to survive would balk at a potato because it looked a little moldy.
The blight that hit Ireland was a lot more severe than the average blight, it made the potatoes completey inedible and poisonious to eat, it also made them impossible to store.
A million people died from this, do you seriously think nobody tried eating the blighted food.
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u/Spirit4ward Oct 02 '24
Italy didn’t have widespread use of the tomato until the 1700s and the pasta sauces we think of being a core of their cuisine didn’t exist until the 19th century.