A Potted History of Edible Conflicts

When we first saw Columbus; his sea-bowed legs were struggling ashore; us natives looked upon that unhealthy guy, that marinated mariner who brought news of garlic and olive oil to the unsuspecting, both of which we natives had no use for. Then it was that we envisioned as if in a dream that natives should never, could never forgive him for the insidious spread of Italian broccoli. Thus we made war upon the brownish white men, endeavoring earnestly to place an embargo on any more useless imports. No use! Salesmen traveled all over our hunting grounds offering yet more pizza ingredients. The Spanish (long before Columbus Day), had left pigs and horses for us Indians for which we were most grateful, and so we forgave the genocidal aspirations of the conquistadors, but broccoli was the absolute last straw, and so we reigned terror upon many a city statue of his likeness and his pervasive, belligerent garlic-breath.