Let's ask ourselves, is there a food that we eat today and consider normal that wasn't strange to those that discovered it? I mean, how did those that discovered the foods we have today even know they were edible to consume? Did they do trials and errors? How many people died of food poisoning, or even actual poisonous plants?
I am asking these questions because there are lots of plants out there that looks like the edible ones we consume till date. Take berries for instance. There are several species of berries that don't look like the ones we recognise. So how did the early people know that they should eat them? Or is it tubber crops like yam, potatoes, carrots, and the likes. Who was the first person to dig them out and conclude that they were food? Let's not even talk about the legumes and cereals. How did they know to make things that are hard soft by applying heat,and then goes on to eat them?
Moving on to the several things that make up a meal. I understand that cooking now it an art and all, but did the first people know that? Did they randomly eat several things at once, or put several things in a pot and hoped that the result would be edible? How did they know in which order to put what they thought to put? Maybe through series of unconscious experiments, and deaths or sickness due to food poisoning. I just remembered a post where someone asked "how many medieval chef where put to death because kings and nobles had food allergies, but they didn't know such a thing exist". How would they even know when most of what they knew then were just handed-down knowledge.
Truly, foods a very strange. That is why we should always appreciate those that came before us, and used themselves as lab rats in the food experiment. Thanks for stopping by my blog. See you soon. 馃
