Browse Items (48 total)

This image is a woodcut illustration of a mung bean plant found in Petrus de Crescentius' "Ruralia Commoda." The image is found in Book 3 of the volume ("Agriculture of Cereals and Building of a Granary") in a section entitled "Of Fieldwork and its…

This source image displays red, green, and yellow peppers with a description of each in relation to the lives of the native peoples of the West Indies.

Spanish historian and missionary Bartolome de las Casas records his interactions with the native peoples of the West Indies, including their foods. In this excerpt, he describes specifically the taste and significance of the peanut, or maní.

An image produced in the late 17th century that gives insight into the nuances of the process, tools used, and care given in Koji Production. Koji is a type of unrefined soy sauce that is treated with microorganisms in order to produce fermentation.

This image is one of over five hundred woodcut illustrations that were part of a book written by Leonhart Fuchs, De Historia Stirpium commentarii insignes, which was originally published in 1542. Albrecht Meyer drew the plants based on observation,…

An image of chili peppers from the German translation of Leonhart Fuch's original De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes. The image was drawn by Albrecht Meyer and transferred to woodblocks by Heinrich Füllmaurer. The woodblocks were cut and…

Five Native Americans are brewing a chocolate drink with cocoa beans and cooking instruments.

This book is a first-hand account by English Physician Henry Stubbe of the different methods of making chocolate and the uses of chocolate in South America in the 17th century.

Depicted is John Leypoldt's smooth-cut copper engraving of tomatoes growing on a vine, which was reprinted by the Library of Congress. The image was likely originally drawn and colored by Basilius Besler, for whom Leypoldt worked as an engraver. …

John Gerard, an English botanist, describes the tomato plant and fruit in his seventeenth century herball.