We have been selectively breeding all kinds of crops and the fruits and vegetables we are used to now look nothing like the actual wild plants that they started as.
Can you guess this vegetable? The answer is in the end of the post!
So let's look at how fruits and vegetables looked like before we intervined through selective breeding.
Tomatoes
The original tomatoes looked more like berries with large seeds inside and Europeans were initially reluctant to taste them because they looked like some poisonous plants that they were used to avoiding.
Watermelons
Watermelons used to have a lot more seeds and a lot less tasty red flesh.
Bananas
Bananas used to be a lot shorter and their seeds were much larger and the fruit was full of them unlike the modern version that is all flesh with remnants of the seeds barely noticeable.
Eggplant
Eggplants were much smaller, lighter in color and almost unrecognizable.
Corn
Despite the fact that corn has been cultivated a very long time ago, it looked very different for quite some time.
Carrots
Carrots started as almost unassuming looking roots and for most of their history they where white, grey and dark red to dark violet. The orange mutation became popular because of the Dutch who fell in love with it when it first appeared because of their national association with the color orange.
...and the answer to our mystery...
There are at least 8 vegetables that we view as absolutely distinct ones in modern times that all stem from wild cabbage also known as Brassica oleracea. It's the original plant that gave rise to all kinds of cabbage (from white to red), broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and even more exotic ones like kohlrabi and gai lan.
Thank you for reading! :)
Which one did you find the most surprising? What was your initial guess for the wild cabbage?