We are so used to getting our produce from our local grocer that we don’t even realize how our food is grown or which part of the plant they come from. We’d have good guesses that almonds might just be like acorns, or asparagus sticks out from a trunk, but you’d be surprised that it’s way different than you imagined.
At some point in the history of mankind, one person finds a plant and proclaims “This red strand in this purple flower will be hella expensive” and would live to tell the tale. And if you’re curious about these tales, here are 30 pictures showing where our food came from.
1. Pistachios
Though salted pistachios make a nice snack (and sometimes an ice cream flavor), they actually look pretty unusual before they’re harvested. As this picture shows, they grow on trees in these colorful pods that look a little bit like half-ripened mangoes.
Cacao is the source of cocoa and, by extension, chocolate. Though we think of it as a brown powder, it actually grows in these red pods that protrude out of a tree.
Roasted peanuts, peanut butter cookies, straight peanut butter, you name it—peanuts are one of the most widely consumed and loved nuts in the world. But many people don’t know that the peanuts themselves are actually the underground root part of these pretty yellow flowers.
Which ice cream do you prefer, vanilla or chocolate? If you said vanilla, do you know what raw vanilla actually looks like? Vanilla beans are actually long drooping beans topped by these beautiful white flowers. Who knew?
These delicious and tropical fruits are green on the inside and fuzzy on the outside. But did you know they actually grow on the vine just like grapes do?
Cashews are a tasty nut with a chewy and creamy texture to them. In the wild, though, they grow in a very unusual way—the nut part we eat is the bottom part of a cashew apple, which has a bitter taste and is sometimes made into an alcoholic drink.
If you’re noticing the pattern here, there are a lot of nuts on this list that grow in strange ways—and almonds are no different. Like some of the others we’ve mentioned, almonds grow in little pods beneath some delicate white flowers.
Saffron is a spicy and fragrant herb that can be used to season meat and rice. It’s also one of the most expensive spices in the herb—considering that it consists entirely of these tiny little spores growing out of purple flowers, it’s not hard to see why.
You may be familiar with this sweet, summery fruit, but did you know that it grows out of these spiky plants sitting very low to the ground? For some reason, I always pictured these things growing on trees.
You can find sesame seeds on top of burger bun or processed into an oil that you might use on rice. Still, they actually grow out of these stalk-like plants with little pods at the top.
These pull-apart vegetables can typically be found blended into a spinach dip. In the wild, though, the part we eat is actually the bottom section of these purple flowering plants!
Although not everybody loves Brussel sprouts, they can be pretty delicious when they’re cooked with balsamic. But did you know they grew in these tall stalks that look like jingle bells?
Although these are a little bit rarer in the kitchen, capers make a great addition to an olive tapenade or some salads for their sweet and bitter flavor. But while capers themselves look like shriveled little peas, they actually grow out of these beautiful white flowers.
The world runs on millions of cups of coffee. Still, we bet you didn’t know that coffee actually grows as little red berries that aren’t all that dissimilar from cranberries.
Just like coffee, black pepper is actually the result of dried peppercorn fruits that look quite a lot like little berries on a vine. Probably not quite what you expected, huh?
Pomegranate seeds are a great addition to a bowl of yogurt, though they can also serve as a snack all on their own. As it turns out, pomegranates grow on trees quite a bit like apples do.
When we eat celery, we’re actually talking about the fibrous stalk part of it. The overall plant actually has some weed-like plants growing out of the top of the part we might add to a salad.
Similar to some of the other items on this list, cloves are actually the dried up flower buds of the clove tree. They are often used in Indian cooking to spice rice.
If you eat a lot of hummus then you’re definitely familiar with the creamy and delicious texture of chickpeas. Still, they look pretty different before they’re harvested—these little seeds actually grow in soft green pods.
While the top of the wasabi plant looks like some normal green sprouts breaking out of the dirt, the bottom part is a strangely gnarled looking root that ends up being the paste we eat.
This one is a real shocker. Although we’re used to seeing quinoa as a fine grain, quinoa actually comes off of tall stalks with some beautifully colored flowers on them.
Most people have no idea what produce looks like before the table- 30 enlightening pics
By Elijah Chan | Food
We are so used to getting our produce from our local grocer that we don’t even realize how our food is grown or which part of the plant they come from. We’d have good guesses that almonds might just be like acorns, or asparagus sticks out from a trunk, but you’d be surprised that it’s way different than you imagined.
At some point in the history of mankind, one person finds a plant and proclaims “This red strand in this purple flower will be hella expensive” and would live to tell the tale. And if you’re curious about these tales, here are 30 pictures showing where our food came from.
