In the sea of available data, decrees for rice acquisition for Manila warehouses, also included in this exhibition, deserve special attention. This most important crop, on which subsistence depended in South-Eastern Asia, was indispensable to feed the local population, the crew of the Galleon and even the slaves it transported. On the other hand, its massive exportation from Philippines was avoided by its cultivation in Panama, both for local supply and exportation to Peru15. The information gathered in Mexico by Augustinian Juan González de Mendoza, published in Rome in 1585, celebrated the abundance of all kinds of food in the great Kingdom of China. European and American readers already knew about most of the products mentioned, such as rice, which the Chinese cultivated in waterlogged lands irrigated by several rivers. As Philip II indicated, in 1573, rice, just as cotton, had been successfully planted in Hispaniola16, Finally, when travelling to New Spain in 1625, Englishman Thomas Gage, remembered the acquisition of large sacks of rice, among other victuals, for consumption on board during the crossing. Did the perfect complement for beans reach America from the Iberian Peninsula and the Philippines at the same time? Once again, the possibility appears of following multiple paths for rice distribution from Asia, but also from Europe and Western Africa, where its cultivation already had a long tradition, studied by Judith A. Carney. Finally, we cannot end this chapter without mentioning some of the products that crossed the Pacific Ocean in the opposite direction, travelling from America to the Philippines. We will highlight two of these due to their importance and impact on the consumption habits of the inhabitants of the Philippines during the Modern Age: sweet potatoes and chocolate. The sweet potato is a tubercle whose origin remains unclear: some researchers have traced it to Hindustan, while others have suggested that it originated in Central America. In any case, the sweet potato reached Spain on the first Columbian voyages and rapidly spread through Europe and also to the Philippines (and the Moluccas), via the Manila Galleon, and from there to China and Japan17. Regarding chocolate, its consumption had an extraordinary impact within Spain during the 18th century18. Widely consumed by pre-Hispanic societies in the territories that later constituted New Spain, the beverage became widespread in early Bour15 Juan Requejo Salcedo, “Relación Histórica y geográfica de la provincia de Panamá (1640)”, Relaciones Históricas y Geográficas de América Central, Madrid: Librería General de Victoriano Suñarez, 1908 [1640], pp. 142,170. 16
AGI, SANTO DOMINGO, 868, L. 3, 5v-6.
17 Darío Orlando Sager, “Las Palmas, trabajo y convivencia”, en IV Congreso de Historia de los pueblos de la provincia de Santa Fe, Santa Fe: 2005, p. 12.
Irene Fattacciu, “The Resilience and Boomerang Effect of Chocolate: A Product’s Globalization and Commodification”, en Bethany Aram & Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla, eds., Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492-1824, Baskingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 225-276; María de los Ángeles Pérez Samper, “Chocolate, té, café: sociedad, cultura y alimentación en la España del siglo XVIII”, en Eliseo Serrano Martín et al., eds., El Conde de Aranda y su tiempo, Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2000, pp. 157-222.
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