CHAPTER III 



WILD SEEDS OF FOOD VALUE, AND HOW 

 THEY HAVE BEEN UTILIZED 



The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush 

 Lays her full mess before you. 



Shakespeare. 



THE Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru 

 brought to the knowledge of the white race a 

 number of vegetable foods that are to-day on every 

 American table — such as Indian corn, the potato, 

 the pepper, and certain varieties of beans. Others 

 are still unknown to the world at large. Among 

 the latter that Cortes found in every-day use in 

 Mexico was a square-stemmed, blue-flowered herb, 

 which the chroniclers of that time called Chian or 

 Chia. It seems to have ranked in popularity with 

 staples like maize, frijoles, maguey, cacao and chili; 

 and was grown with these in the fields and floating 

 gardens of the Aztecs, for the sake of the small but 

 numerous nutritious seeds of a pleasant, nutty 

 fl3,vor. Writers on the products of the New World 



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