Column: A Word, Please: A food word’s background can be delicious. By June Casagrande . Dec. 20, ... But eventually “chow” became a word to mean food of any type or origin. Grub.

Tomatoes, for example, are core to Italian cooking, but originated in the Americas, as Zepeda points out. Beans, essential to both cuisines, are also believed to have originated in the Americas.