Introduction

You remember the days a decade ago when I celebrated the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ “Discovery of America” and the Native Americans who had colonized it some 25,000 years earlier and been visited by Scandinavians a bit earlier. I believe Leif Ericsson also encountered Native Americans when he landed nearly 500 years earlier, up around Vinland, north of the United States. In reflecting the anniversary of Columbus’ voyage, I often make the comment that Columbus set sail seeking black pepper and black Indians and instead found red Indians and red pepper, changing the cuisine and the medicine of the world and reshaping everyone’s food basket and medicine chest significantly.