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Koi were first bred about 200 years ago by farmers in the mountain villages of Niigata, Japan, who raised plain black carp for food. The colourful new fish were a sensation when they were shown at a 1914 exhibition in Tokyo.
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📍 Southern Mexico & Guatemala
The Swiss cheese plant grows wild only in the rainforests of southern Mexico and Guatemala. Its name 'deliciosa' means delicious: the ripe fruit is edible.
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📍 Iberian Peninsula
Merino sheep were developed in medieval Spain, which guarded the fine-wool breed as a monopoly: smuggling one out could mean death. Merinos only reached Australia in 1797, via South Africa.
📍 Eastern Cape & KwaZulu-Natal coast, South Africa
Bird-of-paradise flowers grow wild along South Africa's eastern coast, where sunbirds perching on the blue petals get pollen dusted onto their feet. Joseph Banks named the plant after Queen Charlotte, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
📍 Tian Shan, Central Asia
The apple's wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, still grows in Central Asia's Tian Shan mountains, where apples were first domesticated before travelling along the Silk Road to Europe.
📍 Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam
The French brought the baguette to Vietnam in the 1800s, but the bánh mì sandwich, filled with pâté, pickled carrot and coriander, took shape on the streets of Saigon in the 1950s, partly thanks to bakers who had moved there from the north.
📍 Western Ghats, southern India
Green cardamom, the spice of Swedish buns and Arabic coffee, grows wild in the rainforests of southern India. Yet since about 1980 the top grower has been Guatemala, where a German coffee planter brought it before World War I.