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PASSAGE 2 New Foods and the New World In the last 500 years, nothing about people---not their clothes, ideas, or languages---has changed as much as what they eat. The original chocolate drink was made form the seeds of the cocoa tree by South American Indians. The Spanish introduced it to the rest of the world during the 1500s. And although it was very expensive, it quickly became fashionable. In London shops where chocolate drinks were served became important meeting places. Some still exist today. The potato is also from the New World. Around 1600, the Spanish brought it from Peru to Europe, where it soon was widely grown. Ireland became so dependent on it that thousands of Irish people starved when the crop failed during the Potato Famine of 1845-6, and thousands more were forced to emigrate to America. There are many other foods that have traveled from south America to the Old World. But some others went in the opposite direction. Brazil is now the worlds largest grower of coffee, and coffee is an important crop in Colombia and other South American countries. But it is native to Ethiopia. It was first made into a drink by Arabs during the 1400s. According to an Arabic legend, coffee was discovered when a goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his goats were attracted to the red berries on a coffee bush. He tried one and experienced the wide-awake feeling that one-third of the worlds population now starts the day with. | 
