MAGIC in a test tube

These test tubes contain seed of modern MAGIC varieties, short for 'Meso-American Gone International Crops'

Ancestral farming communities in places we know now as Mexico and Peru created tasty, productive and nutritious varieties for many of the food crops we enjoy today. In search of spice and other riches, European explorers began returning home with these new ingredients in the late 1400s. Adding to the examples shown below were other nutritious crops from the Americas including potato, peanut, sweet potato, quinoa, avocado, pineapple, chocolate, vanilla, papaya, chia and amaranth.

A transformation in European cooking and diet began, and continues today at the University of Warwick. EATWISE TEST KITCHEN and Warwick Crop Centre have joined forces to choose tasty varieties of MAGIC crops which will be suitable ingredients to serve in healthy 'cooked from scratch' food options in catering outlets across campus.

GODIVA beans, HABANADA chili pepper, BLUE BANANA squash and SHIMMER tomato are some of the front-runners.

To cook your own GODIVA beans from scratch. They are now on sale as dry ingredient at ZEROSTOREs in Leamington Spa and Stratford-on-Avon.

If you're curious, try growing a few of the GODIVA beans you bought in a pot of soil or in a corner of your garden.

Here are some helpful instructions to get you started growing your own MAGIC plants.