He meant historically, tomatoes are native to South America before being brought everywhere else. So ie a Sicilian getting angry about not doing some red sauce pasta dish due to feeling this is their heritage original dish and they have patent on the proper procedure... it depends how far back in time you look.
Same ie potatoes in eastern Europe, a base in many many 'traditional' dishes. Yes if we look maybe 10 generations back, not so much for say 30 generations
