Where does Grapefruit come from?
The grapefruit is a chance cross of two Asian imports, the pomelo and the sweet orange. It was first described on Barbados in 1750 as the 'forbidden fruit' and only reached Florida in 1823.
The grapefruit is a chance cross of two Asian imports, the pomelo and the sweet orange. It was first described on Barbados in 1750 as the 'forbidden fruit' and only reached Florida in 1823.
📍 Jamaica
Jerk meat is rubbed with allspice and fiery Scotch bonnet peppers, then slow-smoked over pimento wood. The method grew in Jamaica's hills, where Maroons, escaped Africans, blended it with the Taíno way of smoking meat.
📍 Lima & the coast, Peru
Beef strips stir-fried in a wok with soy sauce, onion and tomato, served with both fries and rice: lomo saltado is a Peruvian favourite born in chifa, the cooking of Chinese immigrants who came to Peru from 1849.
📍 Valencia (Albufera lagoon), Spain
Paella is named after its pan: in Valencian, paella simply means 'frying pan'. The dish grew up among rice farmers around the Albufera lagoon near Valencia, and the classic version uses rabbit, chicken and beans rather than seafood.
📍 Eastern United States (New York to the South)
Tap dance grew up in the United States, where African American dance met Irish jigs and English clogs. A pioneer was William Henry Lane, "Master Juba", who grew up in New York's Five Points in the 1830s and grafted African American rhythms onto jig dancing.
📍 Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA
Pickleball was invented in 1965 as a children's backyard game on Bainbridge Island, Washington, cobbled together from a badminton court, table-tennis paddles and a perforated plastic ball.
📍 Canadian Arctic (Nunavut)
Igloo comes from iglu, the Inuit word for any house, not only one made of snow; English picked it up in the Canadian Arctic in 1824. It may be −45 °C outside, but body heat alone can warm a snow igloo to as much as 16 °C inside.