New Zealanders love feijoas so much that many think they are a Kiwi fruit, but they come from the highlands of southern Brazil and Uruguay. Plants taken from Uruguay to France in 1890 later reached California and then New Zealand.
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📍 Misserghin (near Oran), Algeria
The clementine is a happy accident: a cross of mandarin and sweet orange that sprang up in an orphanage garden at Misserghin, near Oran in Algeria. It was named in 1902 after the brother who tended it, Clément Rodier.
📍 Japan (first farmed in Shizuoka)
Real wasabi is the grated stem of a plant that grows wild in Japan's cold mountain streams, first farmed about 400 years ago in Shizuoka. Most 'wasabi' served outside Japan is actually horseradish, mustard and green colouring.
📍 London (the Savoy), England
French chef Auguste Escoffier created Peach Melba at London's Savoy Hotel in 1892 or 1893 to honour Australian soprano Nellie Melba, then starring at Covent Garden.
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📍 Ecuador (Montecristi to Cuenca)
Panama hats are woven in Ecuador from toquilla palm straw. They got the wrong name because travellers, including Gold Rush prospectors crossing the isthmus, bought them in Panama. UNESCO listed the weaving craft in 2012.
📍 Atlantic coast of Brazil
Tapir comes from tapi'ira in Old Tupi, once spoken along Brazil's coast. Three tapir species live in the Americas, but the fourth, the black-and-white Malayan tapir, lives in Southeast Asia. Their closest living relatives are horses and rhinos.
📍 South America (Brazil & neighbours)
Bougainvillea, the flower of Mediterranean balconies, is a South American native that grows wild from Brazil to Peru and Argentina. It is named after French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, whose expedition recorded it.