Which of the following food item struck as unusual to many travellers during the medieval period?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Coconut
The coconut and the paan were things that struck many travellers as unusual.
NCERT (2026-27): “5. Ibn Battuta and the Excitement of the Unfamiliar … By the time Ibn Battuta arrived in Delhi in the fourteenth century, the subcontinent was part of a global network of communication that stretched from China in the east to north-west Africa and Europe in the west. As we have seen, Ibn Battuta himself travelled extensively through these lands, visiting sacred shrines, spending time with learned men and rulers, often officiating as qazi, and enjoying the cosmopolitan culture of urban centres where people who spoke Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other languages, shared ideas, information and anecdotes. These included stories about men noted for their piety, kings who could be both cruel and generous, and about the lives of ordinary men and women; anything that was unfamiliar was particularly highlighted in order to ensure that the listener or the reader was suitably impressed by accounts of distant yet accessible worlds.… 5.1 The coconut and the paan … Some of the best examples of Ibn Battuta’s strategies of representation are evident in the ways in which he described the coconut and the paan, two kinds of plant produce that were completely unfamiliar to his audience.…”
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