For example, Terence Hays notes that young children in colonial New Guinea learned to say tobacco before mother since they were given tobacco as a pacifier. In other chapters, diffused cultivars take on new meanings. The two case studies from Europe are especially illustrative. Susan Tax Freeman describes how American-origin Capsicum became part of the very essence of Hungarian and Spanish cuisines. Her thought-provoking essay adds to this book the powerful notion of cultivar diffusion providing the material from which culture is shaped.
Foodstuffs acquire meaning and a place in the cuisine structure of a region.
Stanley Brandes chapter complements that of Freeman, discussing early European reactions to potatoes and tomatoes. Sugar in Bolivia and Ecuador, Sweet Interloper by Mary Weismantel and Sidney Mintz, also raises the question of a cultivar s advance into new territory. Mintz, an emeritus professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University who also wrote the conclusion for the book, has written widely about the Caribbean, sugar cane and the forms of its production. The story of sugar diffusion, both as crop and as food, closely follows the history of capitalism. This essay picks up this theme and seeks to separate the plant, its products, and the taste of sweetness.