Vegetable
Edible leaves, stems, flower buds, or immature pods harvested for savory dishes. Although botanically some are fruits, culinarily they’re treated as vegetables (eggplant, okra). Tag when the non-sweet portion is the main food product.
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Black-Eyed Pea: Crop, Culture, Class
The black-eyed pea has a rich global history, shifting from a sacred African symbol to a humble food for laborers and enslaved peoples. Today, it’s celebrated worldwide as both a cultural touchstone and a versatile ingredient that bridges old and new traditions.
legume, vegetable, drought-tolerant, staple -
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Eggplant: Food, Sex, and Poison
The eggplant is more than just a versatile global ingredient—it’s also a cultural symbol, from culinary staple to emoji innuendo. This story traces its journey from domestication and dietary use to its surprising role in digital expression, revealing how food carries layered meanings across cultures.
vegetable, tropical -
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Okra: An Enduring Kitchen Staple
Okra, a cultivated plant with no clear wild ancestor, has deep roots in tropical regions from Southeast Asia to West Africa. This story traces its botanical history and celebrates its enduring role as a symbol of African diasporic resilience and cultural heritage.
vegetable, tropical, heat-tolerant -
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Salvation and Suffering: Potato
The potato (Solanum tuberosum), domesticated in the Andes around 10,000 years ago, has shaped histories of empire, famine, migration, and survival. Celebrated for its resilience yet feared for its vulnerabilities, it has been viewed as both sustenance and threat. In Europe, it fueled debates about class, culture, and nutrition, while in Ireland it became a symbol of tragedy during the Great Famine. Across contexts—from Incan mythology to French Enlightenment science, from satirical caricatures to Japanese American incarceration camps—the potato embodies both comedy and suffering, resilience and fragility. Today, global research seeks to preserve its genetic diversity and protect it from blight, continuing its story as an archive of both survival and resistance.
cold-hardy, high-altitude, root, staple, temperate, vegetable
