10 foods that have changed the world

From political coups to slavery...

The French royal family dined lavishly while the peasants starved to death.

That all changed one October morning in 1789 when riots erupted in Paris over outrageous bread price rises, left. Women marched on Versailles, gathering more supporters on the way. They ransacked the palace and forced the King to come back to Paris – a key event in the French Revolution.

There is no evidence that Queen Marie Antoinette actually said of the starving masses: “Let them eat cake.” The saying goes “sugar, spice, and all things nice” but this sticky treat has a rather unsavoury history.

When European settlers realised they could grow it in the American colonies and gain vast profits, they needed cheap labour. So began the brutal slave trade.

The Triangular Trade saw UK textiles taken to

Africa in exchange for slaves who were taken to the Caribbean and traded for sugar which was exported to Britain. Up to four million slaves were taken to the Caribbean.

These days we just head down to the supermarket... but food shopping was not always so simple. Our hunger for survival, as well as new and tastier fare, had side effects that moulded events. Now History Revealed magazine tells how 10 foods changed the world...

History Revealed magazine, on sale now at £4.99. www. historyrevealed.com

TEA HONEY

The product of bees was loved in the pre-sugarcane world, including by the Romans, who had made a number of enemies. In Turkey, a tribe decided to get its own back on the legions by placing honeycombs made from poisonous rhododendrons along the route. The Romans lapped it up, suffered hysterical fits and were then easily defeated by the locals.

In ancient Egypt, honey was used to treat wounds.

SPAM

There’s more to humble table salt than meets the eye. Not only does it add flavour to food, it can also be used as a preservative or even as an antiseptic. It was so prized by ancient peoples that it could be used as payment – this is where the Latin...

Nothing says British Imperialism like a hot brew. But in 1773 some Bostonians took issue with the taxes imposed on tea, coining the slogan “no taxation without representation”. In protest, they threw hundreds of chests of British tea into the harbour,...

Introduced to Europe from South America in the 16th century, poor folk loved the starchy and cheap spud. In Ireland, the potato came to form the basis of the diet, as a result of harsh British laws. Sadly, blight swept the island, destroying the crop,...

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