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Just like the cuisine, even the history of the food is complex as well as unique. It's a mixture of various cultures and various traditions. Before the Europeans discovered South America, the latter knew all about cultivating an array of plants. They had enough knowledge about the irrigation system, the terrace farming on the mountain slopes. They knew about how to grow corns and lima beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chili peppers, avocados, peanuts and chocolates and also how to raise llamas and guinea pigs. Every region of the Latin America, had its own special cuisine.

Then came the Europeans, the Asians (Chinese and the Japanese), and the Africans (slaves), and they incorporated some of their own ideas and traditions into the Latin culture, and vice-versa. There was a mixture of the Latin American food culture and the food culture of the other civilizations. The Europeans introduced the pigs, chickens, citrus trees, wheat, almonds, cows and goats and took back to their country some of the food habits of the Latin Americans. The Asians, mainly the Chinese and the Japanese immigrants, came to this land with the thing that Asians are famous for; spices. The Africans came to Latin America as slaves. During their meal time, they were given those pieces of meat which no one ate. The slaves modified these inedible food items with whatever they got and transformed it into something new and better, which was taken into the Latin American traditions.

The vast diversity in the South American food culture was not only because of the colonizers or the immigrants or the slaves, but also because of the various traditions followed within the continent. The food culture in Brazil was different from that of Cuba, or that of Argentina or the Mexican food and the rest of the countries within the continent. Cultural exchange between these countries is also responsible for the vast diversity in the Latin American food traditions.

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