A Reveal of the Past and Present of Common Fruits and Vegetables

When you are holding a slice of watermelon or an ear of corn and eating heartily

think about this

these fruits and vegetables that we are so used to seeing every day

did not necessarily look like this before

Below are some foods we are very familiar with

but whose appearance has changed beyond recognition

What is this plant covered in whiskers?

Could it be a medicinal herb?

Actually,

this is a wild carrot!

The earliest carrots grew in 10th-century Persia and Asia Minor

They were purple or white at first

with thin, forked roots

But later

their purple pigment gradually faded and turned yellow

People improved those carrots with thin roots

pungent flavor and a biennial life cycle

turning them into today's more robust, brightly colored

and "crunchy" crop

And what is this round fellow?

It looks very much like a pomelo

It is actually the "ancestor" of the eggplant! Wild eggplants were thorny

Today's eggplant, on the other hand, is connected to its flower

Wild eggplants came in various colors, including white, blue, purple and yellow

Some were even round

not like today's oval eggplants.

After selective breeding

the thorns on the eggplant stem no longer exist

and it has become the larger

oval purple vegetable we can now buy at the vegetable market

This green plant will surely surprise you

because it is wild corn

Does it bear no resemblance at all to modern corn?

North American sweet corn is perhaps the most typical example of selective breeding

It was developed from a barely edible grass plant called teosinte

Humans first began cultivating corn in 7000 BC

At that time the corn was very dry

and looked just like an unprocessed potato

Today's corn is more than 1000 times larger than it was over 9000 years ago,

easier to husk and easier to grow

The sugar content of modern corn has reached 6.6%

while that of wild corn is only 1.9%

Half of these changes appeared after European colonists began cultivating corn in the 15th century

This is a painting by the 17th-century Italian painter

Giovanni Stanchi

's paintings

The plant in the lower right corner should be relatively easy to recognize. That's right

it is a wild watermelon

This is a 17th-century painting

It shows what the seeds inside the watermelon looked like at that time

Compared with wild watermelons, modern watermelons

are fairly similar on the outside

but on the inside they have plump, juicy red flesh

And in fact

the flesh of a watermelon is its placenta

and some watermelons are even seedless

And what is this fruit covered in small holes?

It is actually a wild banana

The earliest bananas cultivated by humans date back at least 7000 years

or even earlier

traceable to 10000 years ago

These banana ancestors were first planted in what is now Papua New Guinea

and also in Southeast Asia

Today's bananas evolved from two species

Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana

The seeds of these two bananas were very large

and hard, just like in the picture

Hybridization techniques produced today's delicious bananas

Their shape is easier to hold, their skin can be peeled directly

and they taste soft, glutinous and sweet

Peaches were once small fruits like today's cherries

with very little flesh

Around 4000 BC

the ancient Chinese were the first to cultivate peaches

At that time peaches had a slightly earthy taste

and were a bit salty, with a texture like lentils

After thousands of years of selective breeding

today's peaches are 64 times larger than their original form

with 27% more juice

and 4% more sweetness

Source: Ecological China Network