Dessert crops are defined as types of
crop
A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...
s or
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...
s that are not (or historically were not) used in everyday consumption. They are used for "
dessert," which is a loose definition for special occasions, for use by the elite, or for pleasure rather than sustenance.
[Mintz, Sidney W. ''"Time, Sugar, and Sweetness." Food and Culture: A Reader.'' Eds. Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik. New York: ]Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
, 1997.
Some examples of such crops in the past are
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
,
sugar,
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...
,
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
and
cocoa. While these crops are more of everyday staples in modern times, a few centuries ago this was not the case. They were regarded as extravagances, as "sinful" indulgences, or even instruments of the
Devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...
.
References
Crops
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