[ad_1]
Two entries from a new alphabet of the colonized world, an illustrated ABC.
A is for apple (Malus domestica), a member of the rose family (Rosaceae), famously thought to be the fruit the serpent gave to Eve and Adam to eat. It had been the one thing they were forbidden to do, eat that fruit, and after they did they fell in love with the world around them—and understandably so, for they were in a garden. The fruit they ate could not have been the apple we know today, as that fruit is native to Central Asia. Most likely what Eve and Adam ate was a pomegranate. There is a legend that says there are as many seeds in a pomegranate as there are commandments in the Torah, the Bible of the Jewish people, known to many others as the Old Testament.
Z is for Zea mays. Called “corn” in North America and “maize” in much of the rest of the world, it is sometimes treated as a grain, when it is dried and ground into a meal (polenta). When it is freshly picked and eaten, it is a vegetable. Like all grains (rice, oats, barley), it is a member of the grass family (Poaceae). It was cultivated by the occupants of what we now call Mexico for thousands of years before Europeans arrived with their natural curiosity (curiosity being a part of what it is to be human) and thoughts of conquest and subjugation of the native inhabitants. Human beings, as they have migrated to and occupied various parts of the earth, have always found nourishment in the grass family. Zea, corn or maize, is grown all over the earth for food, and is said to be the grass most widely cultivated for human consumption.
This is drawn from “An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children.”
[ad_2]
Source link
