<story><title>Why Italy Fell Out of Love with Cilantro</title><url>https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-are-italian-herbs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wheels</author><text>In general, most cuisines and culinary trends are far more modern than we tend to assume.  Until the last 3-ish centuries:&lt;p&gt;Italy didn&amp;#x27;t have tomatoes or basil.  Nor was there corn for polenta.  India didn&amp;#x27;t have chilies.  The Irish and Germans didn&amp;#x27;t have potatoes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PestoDiRucola</author><text>&amp;gt;  Nor was there corn for polenta&lt;p&gt;Before corn, polenta was made with barley: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;historicalitaliancooking.home.blog&amp;#x2F;english&amp;#x2F;recipes&amp;#x2F;ancient-roman-barley-polenta&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;historicalitaliancooking.home.blog&amp;#x2F;english&amp;#x2F;recipes&amp;#x2F;a...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Italy Fell Out of Love with Cilantro</title><url>https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-are-italian-herbs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wheels</author><text>In general, most cuisines and culinary trends are far more modern than we tend to assume.  Until the last 3-ish centuries:&lt;p&gt;Italy didn&amp;#x27;t have tomatoes or basil.  Nor was there corn for polenta.  India didn&amp;#x27;t have chilies.  The Irish and Germans didn&amp;#x27;t have potatoes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ginko</author><text>&amp;gt; The Irish and Germans didn&amp;#x27;t have potatoes.&lt;p&gt;True, but fwiw I wouldn&amp;#x27;t consider potato to be particularly important in German cuisine. Sure you&amp;#x27;ll see it used quite a bit, but many of the more iconic dishes don&amp;#x27;t really need them or can be replaced like with bread dumplings for instance.</text></comment>