A Historical Perspective of Wild Plant Foods in the Mediterranean Area

Abstract

The human feeding process has experienced constant evolution through history. Plant products known by primitive people were used with different objectives: food, medicine, production of materials or magic rituals. With the development of agriculture in the Neolithic, human beings started to grow a great number of species, mainly cereals and legumes, and also fruits and greens. However, many edible vegetables were never domesticated and continued to be consumed by different antique civilizations, as it can be concluded from ancient documents (for example, Ebers Papyrus or classical manuscripts of Greek and Roman writers). Commercial trade through the Mediterranean Sea promoted the exchange of knowledge between different cultures surrounding this area. Some species, such as lotus or nettle, were highly appreciated at this time, and also in the Middle Ages, when food and medicinal uses of plants became very close. From the sixteenth century, the arrival of Europeans to America represented a new source of cultural exchanges including the use of plant species for the human diet. Nowadays, the modernization of agriculture has led to the loss of this valuable heritage. Nevertheless, Mediterranean traditions have made possible that a considerable number of them continue to be present in the human diet for different reasons. Current scientific studies from either an ethnobotanical, nutritional, pharmacological or technological point of view promote the preservation of the traditional knowledge regarding the use of wild plant species, which in the particular context of Mediterranean diet are of special relevance.