Everyday Food That Once Looked Totally Different
It's easy to forget, as you stroll through the supermarket, that most of its food has been grown and domesticated by humans for thousands of years. The domestication of plants and animals marks a watershed moment in human evolution, and led to major shifts in human culture and expanding populations.
But it wasn't simply a case of isolating plants and animals in a field and letting them breed, but rather a constant effort to direct the development of those species to better suit our species' demands. As these wild food sources were slowly steered by man in larger and tastier directions, their appearance also changed to the extent where you'd be hard-pressed to pick the originals out of a lineup. Here are a few plants and animals that don't look anything like they used to.
Pigs
Pigs make bacon, but if you had to face one of their ancestors to get it, you might decide to reconsider your bacon obsession. Pigs are descended from wild boars, which are fast, aggressive, and have sharp tusks made for goring. Since the characteristics that make domestic pigs so useful—fast breeding and the ability to eat almost anything—aren't so useful when exhibited in wild populations, they tend to cause trouble. So, over 10,000 years ago, we began the process of transforming wild boar into modern domestic pigs, starting in both western Asia and China, and eventually extending all over the world. In that time, they appear to have had their back waxed, gained a bunch of weight, and stopped going out in the Sun. Modern pigs don't just taste good, either—they also provide heart valves, are a potential future source of major organs for transplants, and their amazing sense of smell means they are pretty good at finding delicious truffles. And they say dogs are man's best friend.
Carrots
The domesticated orange carrot that we're so familiar with is a perfect example of how humans have modified and bred crops for more successful agriculture. The original wild carrot probably started out in Persia as a small white or purple multi-forked root, with a stronger and more bitter flavor than we would recognize today. Domestication took a number of centuries, but reached a familiar milestone in Holland, where they were bred to create the orange variety we now take for granted. More traditional colors for carrots include purple, white, and yellow, and diverse wild populations still grow in those colors across east Asia. However, despite the current appetite for unmodified and "natural" foods, the carrot's pale and scrawny ancestor probably wouldn't be very successful if it reappeared on shelves today, not when it'd have to compete with its well-fed, spray-tanned offspring.
Watermelon
The suspicion that the familiar juicy red watermelon we know and love has changed over the years, comes from a painting by 17th-century Renaissance artist, Giovanni Stanchi. In the painting—a still life that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables—there appears to be a watermelon in the bottom right corner. But the inside is not the uniform red you might expect, but a segmented white with red swirls and prominent black seeds. It bears a strong resemblance to an unripe modern watermelon, but the large black seeds show that it was ripe, so that's just how it used to look. It definitely looks more interesting than what we eat at picnics today, but it probably wasn't as tasty—which might explain why it was in a painting, and not on Giovanni Stanchi's plate.
Peaches
The cultivation of the peach started in China at least 3,000 years ago, and every peach lover should be very grateful for that fact. If the Chinese hadn't started this project way back then, we simply wouldn't have peaches, at least not in any form that we would recognize. Peaches started out life as small, waxy skinned, cherry-like fruits with little flesh. They were also definitely less sweet, and possessed earthy and salty elements to their flavors. This precursor to the modern peach seems to be extinct, and the only photos available of them are actually photoshopped images of cherries. But maybe that's a good thing—nobody likes to be reminded of their awkward teenage years
Sheep
One ancestor of modern sheep is actually still knocking about, and it possesses the wonderful name "Mouflon." The Mouflon is a mountain-dwelling animal, but instead of thick white fleece, it has a reddish-brown, short haired coat, and looks a lot like a mountain goat. Domestication began around 10,000 years ago, but it took several thousand years of selective breeding before wool production could be confidently added to their resume, alongside meat and milk production. Another effect of domestication is that modern sheep often have shorter limbs and larger heads, proportional to their bodies, than their forebears and wild independent cousins. This goes to show that it's not just humans who risk looking immature if they spend too long living in their parents' basement.
Corn
Corn has undergone a rather dramatic change since it was first cultivated 9,000 years ago. The plant that corn was domesticated from is still around, actually, and is called Teosinte grass. Bearing little resemblance to modern corn, Teosinte grass is almost inedible, with an extremely hard kernel that required repeated pounding with a rock to break and release its potato-like contents. When European settlers showed up and got involved, the changes corn was already undergoing accelerated to the juicy and delicious point we are at today. The work continues, but now the effort is not in pursuit of even tastier corn, but making it hardier and drought-resistant, in order to deal with that other great human project: climate change.