I'll answer the question above first: Chances are really slim if you're playing anything that remotely looks pre-Industrial Era. Considering tomatoes live on a different continent closer to the equator than lettuce, one would have to do some major travel to meet the other. However, most of the world settings seen in traditional gaming do have transports such as ships and caravans, so some trade is possible and you can conceivably maneuver the continents to be within easy traveling distance from each other.
The truth is that things aren't as primitive as they look by the medieval era, where most sword and sorcery gaming takes place. By this time there has been a lot of cultivation and considerable trafficking of plant materials. Here's a rundown of what happened in Earth's history, and you can compare the eras to whatever style of game you're running.
8,000 BC. As Pleistocene era ends, people in Near East begin using digging sticks to plant wild grass where seeds can be conveniently harvested.
7,000 BC. Barley, millet, lentils cultivated in Thessaly, one of Greek isles.
5,000 BC. Staples of Native American cuisine--corn and common beans--cultivated in Western Hemisphere.
4,000 BC. The people of Indus Valley (now Pakistan and Afghanistan) are raising wheat, barley, peas, sesame seeds, mangoes, and dates on irrigated fields, as well as bananas, citrus and grapes for wine on smaller plots.
3,000 BC. Potatoes cultivated and harvested in Andes Mountains. A once-fertile and green area of North Africa is transformed into the Sahara Desert by overgrazing and overworking of soil.
2,700 BC. Egyptians already know and grow 500 medicinal plants.
2,475 BC. Olive trees raised in Crete.
2,000 BC. The watermelon is cultivated in Africa, figs in Arabia, tea and bananas in India, and apples in the Indus Valley.
1190 BC. Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses III commissions more than 500 public gardens.
600 BC. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are built by King Nebuchadnezzar II (with help of thousands of slaves). The gardens are laid out on a brick terrace about 400 feet square and 75 feet above the ground. Irrigation screws are designed to lift water from the Euphrates River to the gardens.
301 BC. In the History of Plants and Theoretical Botany, Theophrastus (Father of Botany) describes plant diseases, like rusts and mildews, explains how to hand-pollinate fig trees to maximize productivity.
149 BC. Cato the Elder, in De Agriculture, urges farmers to plant grapes and olives (because they draw moisture and nutrients from the subsoil) instead of planting drought-susceptible grain.
1 AD. Roman farmers advised to spread dung on fields to enhance soil fertility.
900 AD. Tofu becomes dietary staple in China.
1100. Dutch communities dig ditches and build dikes to drain water from low-lying land where they want to grow crops, ignoring the old adage that water seeks its own level.
1305. Opus Ruralium Commodorum, by Bolognese agriculturalist Petrus de Crescentiis, is first book of agriculture to appear in Europe since the second century.
1354. The Alhambra, built by Moors in Spain, is completed. The Islam-style garden features enclosed courts surrounded by arcades, planted with trees and shrubs and enhanced with tile, fountains, pools.
1510. Sunflowers from Americas are introduced to Europe by Spanish. In many countries they become major oilseed crop. In others, bird food.
1528. Sweet potatoes, haricot, cocoa, vanilla beans are introduced to Spain by Hernando Cortés, who presents some of the beans to Pope Clement VII. Until then, fava beans were the only beans known in Europe.
1540. A potato from South America reaches Pope Paul III via Spain. He gives the tuber to a Frenchman, who introduces it to France as an ornamental.
1573. Thomas Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry lists 25 herbs to grow for "physick" (medicine), 40 seeds and herbs for kitchen, 20 herbs and roots for salads and sauces, 12 herbs and vegetables for boiling or buttering.
1634–1637. Tulip mania: Affluent Dutch gardeners bid up the price of rare or unusual tulip bulbs. In one instance, a single bulb sells for 2 loads of wheat, 4 loads of rye, 4 fat oxen, 8 fat pigs, 12 sheep, 2 barrels of butter, 1,000 lbs of cheese, 2 casks of wine, 4 barrels of beer, a silver breaker, a suit of clothes, and a complete bed.
1638. Honeybees introduced into American colonies and soon escape from domestic hives, establish wild colonies, and supplant native species. Indians call them "white man's fly."
1744. Fredrick II distributes free seed potatoes to reluctant Prussian peasants and makes them an offer: plant potatoes or suffer having their ears and noses cut off. Armed soldiers enforce his edict.
1752. Chinese roses first arrive in Europe. By 1800, European hybridizers (French, Dutch, English) are crossing them with old European once-blooming rose hybrids.
1820. Salem County, New Jersey, Horticultural Society President Col. Robert Gibbon Johnson eats a raw tomato in front of a skeptical crowd at the Salem courthouse, defying the belief that it will kill him.
1830. John Deere, American Blacksmith and inventor, develops first steel plowshare. Edwin Budding, an English textile engineer invents the lawnmower, based on the design of the cylinder used in textile mills to trim the nape off cloth.
1853. Horticulturist Ephraim Wales Bull exhibits the first Concord grapes to Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He begins selling cuttings from the parent vine for $5 each and within 10 years, Concords are growing all across America.
1866. Gregor Johann Mendel, an Austrian monk, publishes his findings about variation and heredity in plants at his monastery's experimental garden. He cultivated and tested at least 28,000 pea plants, carefully analyzing seed and plant characteristics. His discoveries help plant breeders understand dominant and recessive traits.
1894. W. Atlee Burpee & Co. introduces "Iceberg" lettuce.
1914. George Washington Carver reveals results of experiments that show value of peanuts and sweet potatoes in replenishing soil fertility. Carver also presents the many peanut byproducts he produced in his laboratory—flour, molasses, vinegar, cheese, milk, coffee subs, synthetic rubber, plastics, insulating board, linoleum, soap, ink, dyes, wood stains, metal polish, shaving cream, etc.
So now you can see the relatively state of botanical cultivation in the world at different times for your campaigns. You can have bananas in a primitive hack & slash adventure, but you probably couldn't have Concord grapes unless you’re messing with some serious anachronisms.
Now certainly this timeline doesn't need to affect game-play too much. Obviously another realm can have certain Races and cultures that are advanced enough to move a step or two ahead and spread the love around using ships. It should be pointed out however, that trade equals business and profit, so specialty items would cost more. For a gaming group that might be asked to guard a shipment, this information becomes very important.
Herbs: Some of the earliest herb gardens were plants about 4000 years ago in Egypt. Herb growing was often associated with temples, which required herbs and sacred flowers for daily worship and ritual. Olives and pomegranates were introduced to Egypt at a very early date; Queen Hatshepsut (c.1473-1458 BC) had frankincense and myrrh. Cornflowers, poppies, mandrakes, figs, and lotuses appear in many wall paintings. Chamomile was identified by pollen analysis as the main herb constituent in the embalming oil used to mummify Ramses II, d. 1224BC.
The present-day concept of the herb garden was developed largely from ancient Egyptian, Christian, and Islamic religious traditions. Wherever cultivation is closely associated with buildings, it tends to be orderly. In Islam, paradise is seen as an enclosed garden, with cool shade and water, and exquisite flowers and fruits, including roses, jasmine, lilies, apricots, pomegranates, almonds, and myrtle.
Early Christian monasteries resembled Roman villas in design. They also inherited Roman garden styles, which is essentially geometric and formal. Favorite plants in Roman times included rosemary, bay, and myrtle. Monastic gardens also owed much to Egyptian, Syrian, and Persian traditions, where useful plants were grown in enclosures to protect them from animals, provide shade and make the best use of a water supply.
Monastic cultivation became so firmly established that when St. Benedict founded the Benedictine order at Monte Cassino in Italy in 540AD, gardening was second only to praying in the daily regime. Monasteries were largely self-sufficient in produce, placing special emphasis on herbs to heal the sick. They were skilled at using herbs to flavor vegetarian diets, brewing and distilling ale, wine, liqueurs such as Benedictine, and the cosmetic Carmelite water which was based on lemon balm.
Herb gardening grew in popularity during the 13th century, often a result of instruction by infirmary sisters. In the 16th century, herb gardens were planted by universities for teaching botany and medicine—subjects linked until separated by advances in science during the 18th century.
The first of these "physic" gardens" was at the University of Padua in 1545. By the end of the 17th century, there were physic gardens throughout Europe.
Add onto this ideal the concepts of alchemy and magic, and you can also employ gardens for those professions that need it. They would most likely be geometric in nature to correlate with the stars or alchemic symbols. Hedge witches would have small herb gardens behind their huts, with more dangerous herbs deeper in the woods.
Grains: Grains have been around for a very long time. Processing grains into flour takes a lot of work and many hands. Since horses are usually prominent, it stands to reason that some primitive threshers and loaders are already in existence. While not important to the everyday gaming group, it's nice to know what you and your horses are eating depending on what setting you’re visiting.
From a Wikipedia article on "cereals":
- Maize: A staple food of peoples in North America and South America, later cultivated in Africa.
- Wheat: The primary cereal of temperate regions.
- Rice: Primary cereal of tropical regions. Wild rice also grows in areas of the temperate wet regions of America.
- Barley: Grown for malting and livestock on land too poor or too cold for wheat.
- Sorghums: Important staple in Asia and Africa, popular worldwide for livestock.
- Millets: Important staple in Asia and Africa.
- Oats: Staple in Scotland and popular worldwide for livestock.
- Rye: Important in cold climates
- Buckwheat: Used in Europe and Asia, used for pancakes and groats.
- Quinoa: Ancient pseudocereal used in the Andes.
Spices: Spice traders are to medieval-style gamers what drug-runners are to today's society. Spices were some of the most valuable items of trade in ancient and medieval times and were used in potions and spells, purification ceremonies, embalming, cosmetics, perfumes, medicines, and even poisons, not to mention the obvious trait of flavoring food. Spice trade helped create many cities, as the routes the spice traders took often had stops along the way and these commonly used rest areas developed into towns and cities.
The most popular spices among medieval Europeans were cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and pepper. The country that has a monopoly on any of these spices is a rich country, and one that would not be willing to share its growing secrets. Plot hooks abound for the group that gets involved in spice trade, including spying, stealing, guarding, or just being innocent bystanders among the subterfuge and illegal activities of the spice traders.
Alcohol: Taverns and drinking are two staples of most gaming and all alcoholic beverages come from plants. Any sugary element fermented over a period of time creates alcohol. The next time a character asks for beer, wine, or mead at an inn, you may want to point this out. Many monasteries fooled around with creating alcoholic beverages first, so the best-tasting alcohols probably come from them.
Wine, from fermented grapes, is one of the oldest, most famous beverages. Grown in the East, it quickly became an imported favorite in the West. Barley malt ale has been around since the ancient Egyptians. Hops, a common flavoring for beer, was first used to flavor beer in the 11th century, but was not common until the 17th. Most likely, the ale your characters drink are sans hops. Mead may date back before wine in some countries and this fermented-honey beverage is famous for its inclusion in human society.
Stronger liquors, such as whiskey, definitely existed as far back as the 12th century, and it wouldn't be a stretch to have it in your game. Rum also has an ancient history, fermented from sugar cane in India or China and called "brum" thousands of years ago. Professional distillation techniques were not technically invented until the 13th century, but cold distillation (freezing a fermented beverage and allowing only the alcohol to drip out), would make for some pretty potent alcohols.
Other Uses: Thatch has been a component of housing since forever, used to make roofs out of sedge, heather, hay, water reeds, or rushes. Done correctly by a skilled thatcher, these roofs can last up to 50 years. Straw is also used to make hats, along with bamboo. Grass, rush, hemp, and sisal are all used to make rope. Coconut fiber can be used to make twine, floormats, doormats, brushes, and mattresses. Cotton, rice, hemp, nettles, Cyperus, and the fibrous portion of softwood trees all help create those nifty scrolls they keep handing out to wizards. Cotton, flax, and pineapple fibers are all used in clothing manufacture. The dyes used to make the wool pretty are mostly plant fibers. The ships and carts that bring forth the spices are pretty much all of plant materials.
What does this mean to the characters?
Well, for one thing, more professions. Instead of talking about how a character was a farmer, you could now embelish this with him being a sugar cane farmer who was conscripted into the army after being arrested for illegally selling brum. It adds a whole new flavor to the character creation. Likewise, a GM can pick and choose through the thousands of different people among the manufacturing arm of any number of the horticultural process for their non-player characters.
Stealing Food
In the previous article, I mentioned that the characters could forage for food illegally near towns and village or even cities. Vegetable gardens in the medieval north were more personal, with most of the commercial crops being grains and cereals. Timber and lumber are also great commodities in seasonal forests. Closer to the tropics, kingdoms produce specific plants, spices, and fruits as their national crops, using hundreds of workers/slaves to transport valuable commodities not found anywhere else.
Free Food
European-type Monasteries were usually required to provide respite to weary travelers and usually had the best gardens, offering a free albeit bland meal and medical services to anyone who needed it. Gaming groups would be remiss in not taking advantage of this service in their own game settings. Other types of monasteries, designed after the eastern traditions, are not so welcoming to strangers.
Farms
Farms can be another source of stories for RPGs. Seasonal Farming:- Spring: The crops are sown. This is the second busiest time of the year. The families are all out in the fields and the towns are near-empty of people, only artisans and innkeepers remaining. This is a good time for characters to get jobs in return for some food or a place to stay for the night.
- Summer: Crops are in and the farmers can relax a bit and pray for good weather. In warmer regions, the farmers need to keep an eye on their irrigation techniques.
- Autumn: Known as Harvest in most places, this is the busiest time of the year as the farmers try to bring in their crops and process the food before winter. Grains are stored and the surplus is sent to the market. This is an important time when characters could help out the farmers in return for some food or a bed.
- Winter: In early winter, excess food is plentiful, but in later winter, characters shouldn't expect much in the way of hospitality.
Mono-crop Farming: This type of farming, used to help build empires, requires many hands to supply an excess of grain or food to support an army and a government. In most cases, these extra hands are the hands of slaves, but can also consist of prisoners or migrant workers if you don’t want slavery in your game system.
Next Article: Plants as Medicines, or Ow! Is there a Leech in the House?
