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Comment by akshat_h | Hacker News Reader

I am quite curious about how food was before potatoes, tomatoes and chillies were found in Americas. Based on what I know of Indian cuisine(north India Punjabi though it is one of the most popular that has been exported outside), these three ingredients are used very often. In particular, tomatoes are used pretty much everywhere for the curry.

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Bangladeshi cooking uses a lot of traditional old world ingredients. Garlic, cloves, cumin, turmeric, and ginger were all available in the old world. Potatoes are common today, but traditional vegetables like tarot and radishes are too. Many dishes are made without chilli peppers, although that's certainly common now. They up the heat, but I don't think they define the flavor profile in many Bangladeshi dishes.

I recall reading (on Wikipedia?) that the potato took the place of the parsnip in Europe.

Edit:

> All they did to the parsnip was fatten it up. It's still the same earthy root fed to cows on the Isle of Guernsey, remarkably nutritious but long ago dethroned as Europe's major starchy root by the New World potato.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06...

From what I remember reading, ancient Babylonians really seemed to enjoy garlicy/fatty foods. I'll edit with a citation if I can find a good one.

In Persian cuisine at least, pomegranate was used in a lot of dishes that the tomato then conquered.

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