The richest gift from the New World to the Old was not gold but a wonderful variety of new crops. Corn, beans, squash, tomatos, limes, avocados, jicama, papaya, mangos, guavas, chiles, peanuts, cashews, turkeys, pineapples, yams, potatoes, vanilla and chocolate all have their origin in the Americas. Before 1492 these foods were completely unknown in Europe, and their introduction there by the early conquistadors led to major changes in worldwide tastes and cuisine. Today it's hard to imagine spaghetti without tomato­based sauces, movies without popcorn, hamburgers without french fries, the fourth of July without watermelon and corn on the cob and, of course, Thanksgiving dinner without turkey. All of these were products of the New World, developed over a long period of time by the farmers of the Americas. In addition, Prehispanic dishes such as tamales, guacamole, tacos, chile salsas, tostadas, beans, tortillas and cocoa have become popular all over the world.

The New World lacked, however, the domesticated animals so essential in the European diet. Dogs, turkeys and ducks were the only animals raised for food in the Americas, though wild game, reptiles, fish, birds of many kinds and their eggs added protein to the Precolumbian diet. The alcoholic drinks of the Old World were also absent in the New. Only pulque, distilled from the juice of the maguey plant, was consumed as an intoxicating beverage. Thus the arrival of the Spanish had a significant impact on the native diet. Grapes and barley to make wine and beer were soonintroduced. Chickens and pigs became favorite foods and milk, butter, cheese, sugar, beef and mutton were added to the Precolumbian cuisine. However even today many people throughout the Americas prefer the old ways and traditional culinary practices. In Mexico, particularly, ties to the past are strong and evident. People continue to plant and consume the foods favored by their ancestors for thousands of years. The busy markets of modern towns and villages reflect these traditional food preferences. Throughout Mexico garden produce is carried into town from small outlying farms. As in the Prehispanic period, women still seat themselves on the ground and carefully lay out on woven mats mounds of ripe tomatos, green nopal cactus pads, and piles of beans, corn and squash for sale. Shoppers scrutinize the displays, carrying their purchases home to be prepared according to age­old recipes. The corn tortilla, not wheat bread, remains the most important food staple. In the city tortillas can be purchased fresh from the corner tortilleria, while in the villages the dried maize is now ground daily by the local mill rather than by hand on metates. In many regions today's housewife, like her Prehispanic predecesor, still pats the damp corn masa into tortillas to be baked on the traditional comal. The pleasant rhythymic pat pat of hands shaping the thin corn cakes still punctuates early morning in the streets and courtyards of rural Mexico.

Other contributions found their way to the Old World from the Americas. These included tobacco for pipes, cigars and cigarettes, chicle for chewing gum, and colorful flowers such as the marigoldfor European gardens. Also adopted were new medicinal herbs for healing and relieving pain, and steam baths, manipulation and massage for treatment of injuries.

Another New World crop, rubber, changed the European concept of sports and games forever. Until the soldiers of Cortes watched the swift ritual game of tlachtli being played on the stucco ball court of the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, no European had ever seen a bouncing rubber ball. At first the Spanish thought the bouncing balls must have magical qualities, a spirit inside of them that made them arch and bounce against the walls of the court and the bodies of the players. It didnt take them long to recognize the potential of the strange new substance and adopt it as their own. Most modern ball games derive from this ancient American "sport of kings", played for over 3000 years before Cortes first stepped foot in Mesoamerica.

European adventurers and conquistadors swarmed to the New World searching for the wealth of the Americas. They thought to find it in precious metals, spices and jewels; instead they found it in something quite different. The true treasure and the greatest gift of the New World to the Old was the rich new cornucopia of crops