5. Summary of the lesson

Mani's family lives in Senji, Tamil Nadu. One day Mani's teacher informed that potatoes were foreign vegetables, and we must consume foods that are locally grown. He refused to eat his favourite potato curry, and then his parents started telling him the actual story. They explained to him that many vegetables including potatoes, ladies finger, chillies, corn etc were brought in to India by merchant sailors who were looking for spices in our country. Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese sailor, landed in Kerala and he was elated to find black pepper. Similarly, Christopher Columbus, another sailor who wanted to come to India for pepper, landed accidentally in South America, where he found chillies. If not for him, the world may not have known about the spice called chilli at all. Mani and his sister Selvi were astonished by the fact that these vegetables have travelled a long way to make their food delicious!