‘Columbian exchange’, the remarkable crossover of non-human species set in motion by Europeans’ arrival in the Americas after 1492, and its transformative effect on the global configuration of culture, economy and cuisine. Tobacco, peppers, potatoes and turkeys flowed into Eurasia; maize, rubber and chickens entered Africa; and citrus fruits, coffee, horses, donkeys and livestock travelled to the Americas. Crosby went on to argue that the global ascendance of European economies since the sixteenth century could be accounted for by a process he called ‘ecological imperialism’.10
