Whose idea was it to try THAT?

[Sophistry and Illusion]

Many human innovations seem to me to necessarily have been the product of sheer lunacy. For example, I have several times read versions of the following:
Early attempts to prevent smallpox originated in China several thousand years ago. In the ancient process known as variolation, dried smallpox scabs were blown up the nose of the patient.
But the obvious question is, why the hell would they try that in the first place? Was it some bored high school students hanging out amidst the corpses one day, and one says, "Dude, I heard you can totally get high by snorting the scabs off of one of these stiffs." His buddies: "Let's totally try it!" They later notice they are all immune to smallpox. Probably not, but who the hell thought this would ever be a good idea (even though it did turn out to be a good idea)?

What innovation has made you say, "What the hell made them try THAT?"

And if you have an explanation for why any of these were tried, please satisfy our curiosity.

[ChiefScott]

Tobacco/marijuana.

"Hey I know! Let's take these leaves, dry 'em out real good -- but not too dry. Then let's light 'em on fire and breathe in the smoke!

Yeah, that's the ticket!

I now feel the urge to invent... Cheez-Doodles."

[OneCentStamp]

Coffee. The whole process of making a beverage out of coffee is utterly counterintuitive.

"Right, so there are these little berries, OK?"
"Are we gonna eat the berries?"
"Not exactly. We're going to just take the little seeds inside and..."
"Are we gonna eat the seeds?"
"Not exactly. We're going to let them spoil, ferment for a few days, then..."
"Are we gonna eat the fermented seeds?"
"Not exactly. We're going to take the fermented seeds and roast them until they're charred and bitter."
"Are we gonna eat the charred, fermented seeds?"
"Not exactly. We're going to grind them up and boil them into a drink."

:confused:

[Queen Tonya]

Oysters, the first guy that looked at an oyster and thought "Yum!" is a puzzle.

I know that the real answer is probably something like "hey, other animals are sucking this chewy mucus looking stuff out, looks edible and food's hard to come by....mucus doesn't even put up a fight" but dayum.

I so picture a coupla drunk-assed cavemen on the beach going "Dude, I'll give you five bucks if you eat that thing."

[Hypno-Toad]

Vanilla beans require so much preparation before they even taste like "Vanilla" that I wonder how anyone discovered them.

"Dude, I was, like, alternating between massaging that beanpod and drying it in the sun every day for, like, a month and woah, it really tastes good after you squeeze out the oil and combine it with chiles and cacao in a hot frothy drink."

"You've got too much free time."

[tdn]

Wheat.

Hey, this isn't edible. Maybe if we took the seeds out, ground them into a powder, mixed that up with water and yeast, let it sit aound until it doubles in size, then heat it up, we'd really have something here. Or we could just eat those berries.

[lieu]

Makin' babies.

I bet she looked at him and said "You wanna put what where?"

[JustThinkin']

<too obvious> Puffer fish sushi.

"Here try this. . . oops."

[OneCentStamp]

Hey, this isn't edible. Maybe if we took the seeds out, ground them into a powder, mixed that up with water and yeast, let it sit aound until it doubles in size, then heat it up, we'd really have something here. Or we could just eat those berries.Heh. You give us too much credit. Yeast wasn't identified and isolated until the 16th Century. We enjoyed bread (and wine and beer) in blissful ignorance for at least 5000 years before then, thanks to the wonder of "leaving stuff lying around until microbes land on it."

:p

[freckafree]

Anything that requires stiffly beaten egg whites, like soufflé or meringue.

[Drunky Smurf]

Oysters, the first guy that looked at an oyster and thought "Yum!" is a puzzle.

I know that the real answer is probably something like "hey, other animals are sucking this chewy mucus looking stuff out, looks edible and food's hard to come by....mucus doesn't even put up a fight" but dayum.

I so picture a coupla drunk-assed cavemen on the beach going "Dude, I'll give you five bucks if you eat that thing."

In the same vein. The first person to see a lobster, crab, shrimp or craw-fish and thought, "Damn I bet that thing tastes good." was crazy.

[tdn]

Heh. You give us too much credit. Yeast wasn't identified and isolated until the 16th Century. We enjoyed bread (and wine and beer) in blissful ignorance for at least 5000 years before then, thanks to the wonder of "leaving stuff lying around until microbes land on it."
Yeah, I get that, actually.

A funny thing happened a few months ago. I bought an orange, let it sit around for a long time. (Not really on purpose, I just didn't want it.) One morning I decided it looked really good, and decided to eat it. Oh my! Not wanting to get bagged that early in the morning, I ended up throwing it out. What I should have done is saved the juice for an afternoon cocktail.

[Antinor01]

Piercings.

I just wonder who it was that thought "You know, I think I'll stick that piece of metal through my ear. I bet that would look good." I imagine though that the invention of piercings came shortly after the discovery of alcohol.

[Bayard]

I'm sure I could look this up in five minutes on the internet, but I kind of prefer the sense of wonderment. Who thought that gnawing on tree sap--but not eating it--would be a good time? (OK, I just looked it up. Wonderment is overrated.) "Hey, look at that stuff oozing out of the tree! Coincidentally, I've been worried about my biting strength. That'll give the ol' jaw a workout!"

[SnakesCatLady]

I've always wondered why anyone ever decided to eat kiwi fruit. I love it, but, I mean it's fuzzy. And green inside.

[Plynck]

Chemistry books will note that a particular element is poisonous, and then mention that it is "bitter in taste".

Perhaps that's why most of the books have multiple authors.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

One I forgot--doctors "discovered" years ago (before blood glucose tests) that the urine of diabetics was sweet. What exactly was going on in that exam room? :dubious:

[pprgrl]

Pre-puberty, I always used to wonder how kissing got invented.

"Hey, you know, I really like you. I was thinking, it might be kind of fun if I rubbed my lips on yours for a while, and then maybe put my tongue in your mouth and wiggled it around for a bit."

"That sounds kind of gross...but I'm really getting bored with parcheesi. Why don't you go invent the toothbrush first and then maybe we'll give it a try."

[Sailboat]

I so picture a coupla drunk-assed cavemen on the beach going "Dude, I'll give you five bucks if you eat that thing."

I suggest five clams, as in the currency in the B.C. comic.

The first person to see a lobster, crab, shrimp or craw-fish and thought, "Damn I bet that thing tastes good." was crazy.

I've always said that if shrimp were land animals we'd hire someone to spray our house for them, not eat them.

Sailboat

[matt_mcl]

One I forgot--doctors "discovered" years ago (before blood glucose tests) that the urine of diabetics was sweet. What exactly was going on in that exam room? :dubious:

Exactly what you think. There's even a carving on a section of Rouen Cathedral that has satirical images of various professions, this one depicting a doctor taking a sip.

Anyway, what I always wondered is how they figured out which parts of the fugu pufferfish were edible.

[kivrin]

The one I always wonder about is mayonnaise. Who says "Hey, you know what would be great on this sandwich? Some eggs, beaten in oil with lemon juice and herbs until the mixture becomes soemthing totally different in texture!"

[Lightray]

Chemistry books will note that a particular element is poisonous, and then mention that it is "bitter in taste".

Perhaps that's why most of the books have multiple authors.
My organic prof used to give us smell and taste and health effects (usually, fatal of one variant or another) for every new compound he used as an example.

First job as a shiny new engineer after graduating, I had an unknown, clear, odorless fluid dribble out of what should have been an empty reactor. I was all ready to abort the run, when the PhD whose process we were running simply stuck his finger into the flow, and took a taste.

PhD: "Nope. Not organic. We're fine."
me: :eek:

When I actually asked what the Hell made him try that, he basically answered "Eh, we used to rinse glassware in benzene with not gloves." My conclusion: stupid, is what made him try that.

... come to think, one of my classmates in inorganic chem identified his unknown salt by taste, too. Caused the TA and I ('cause I had the only sodium chloride as an unknown) a few moments of panic trying to figure out what he'd chowed down on. (it wasn't too toxic; I think they induced vomiting just because he was an idiot who needed to learn a lesson)

[ZipperJJ]

Most baked good amaze me. Butter and flour themselves didn't just materialize one day. Then people had to figure out yeast and granulated sugar. There's a lot of chemical complexity between different types of bakery. What happens when I add more eggs? Less flour? More baking soda? More air?

Amazing.

[Projammer]

Any time one of these threads comes along I have to add surstromming (http://spleenme.blogspot.com/2005/11/weird-food-surstromming.html) to the list.

Yep. Pickled herring. Banned on most major airlines because of the tendency of the cans to explode. Violently and nausiatingly.

ETA (again): Have some surstromming antinor01

[Antinor01]

Any time one of these threads comes along I have to add

Interesting reaction, it makes you do math? :D

[cmyk]

I've always said that if shrimp were land animals we'd hire someone to spray our house for them, not eat them.

I am so stealing that.


To add on Antinor's piercing, how about those 3rd world tribes that put those big plates in their lips. I mean, geezus! Way to inconvenience yourself and endure what looks to be a highly uncomfortable lifestyle, become a freakshow, and never be able to whistle. Ever.

What were they thinking?

Also, those powdered wigs they use in English courts. I understand tradition, but why such an archaic, almost costumed, accessory for a civil occupation?!

[tdn]

Most baked good amaze me. Butter and flour themselves didn't just materialize one day. Then people had to figure out yeast and granulated sugar. There's a lot of chemical complexity between different types of bakery. What happens when I add more eggs? Less flour? More baking soda? More air?

Amazing.
I think once that the basic concept of bread caught on, the rest is a no-brainer. People have an amazing capacity to tinker with and improve things that are already useful. When I'm really hungry and have no food in the house, I'll sometimes make simple bread (flour and water, pinch of salt, form into a disk, fry in a little oil). I often throw in odd ingredients just to see what happens. (Hint: baking powder, sugar, and Dutch process cocoa = Bad Idea.)

[Kythereia]

Anchovies. On pizza.

My case has been rested.

[gwendee]

The one I always wonder about is mayonnaise. Who says "Hey, you know what would be great on this sandwich? Some eggs, beaten in oil with lemon juice and herbs until the mixture becomes soemthing totally different in texture!"

More from the egg family: meringue. Particularly since it was invented (discovered?) before there were electrig mixers. "You know what this needs? Beat 6 egg whites until you're sure your arm will fall off, then keep going for 6 hours..."

While we're at it, who ever decided that adding a pinch of cream of tartar (why IS it called that?) would improve it? What even is that stuff, and how does a quarter teaspoon make a difference in half a dozen eggs?

I People have an amazing capacity to tinker with and improve things that are already useful.
This is what I think when I start thinking about knitting too hard. I understand someone seeing animals with big fluffy coats and thinking "hey I bet it's warm in there, but who was the first to get us from raw wool to yarn...and from there to really intricate patterns such as aran sweaters?

[OneCentStamp]

While we're at it, who ever decided that adding a pinch of cream of tartar (why IS it called that?) would improve it? What even is that stuff, and how does a quarter teaspoon make a difference in half a dozen eggs?It's tartaric acid crystals. What is tartaric acid? It's a weak acid that collects in the top of wine barrels and on the underside of wine corks. For some reason, lowering the Ph ever so slightly makes for a fluffier, more durable foam. [/wannabe Alton Brown]

[Absolute]

Hell, eggs in the first place. "You know those hard things with the goo inside the birds shit out? Let's try eating them. No, the white ones."

[Mangetout]

I think once that the basic concept of bread caught on, the rest is a no-brainer. People have an amazing capacity to tinker with and improve things that are already useful. When I'm really hungry and have no food in the house, I'll sometimes make simple bread (flour and water, pinch of salt, form into a disk, fry in a little oil). I often throw in odd ingredients just to see what happens. (Hint: baking powder, sugar, and Dutch process cocoa = Bad Idea.)
The conventional story for the invention of leavened bread is that someone left a bowl of gruel lying about and it started fermenting. I think it's more likely that people were already baking flat bread and just noticed that when you make a double batch of dough, intending to use the rest later, it comes out a bit more puffy.

Flour and water mixed together will start to ferment spontaneously due to the natural yeasts and bacteria naturally present in it (I recently put this (http://atomicshrimp.com/7742/) to the test). The hard thing would be to make dough and not have it rise.

[Danalan]

Coffee. The whole process of making a beverage out of coffee is utterly counterintuitive.
:confused:According to our roaster, it started with Kaldi the goatherd (http://www.dancinggoats.com/The_Story_W33C236.cfm), in Ethiopia, noticing that his goats 'danced' after eating the berries from a particular shrub. Hence the name of our espresso: Dancing Goats (http://www.dancinggoats.com/).

Not too much of a stretch for the goatherd, finding the coffee cherries unpalatable, would eventually note that the pits contained the lovely stimulant (caffeine). Efforts to process this stimulant into a more and more palatable form continue to this day.

[rowrrbazzle]

One I forgot--doctors "discovered" years ago (before blood glucose tests) that the urine of diabetics was sweet. What exactly was going on in that exam room? :dubious:Puddles of urine from diabetics attracted more flies, ants and other insects gathered around than non-diabetics. THEN someone cautiously tasted it.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

You know, most food was initially consumed not on the principle of "I be that'll taste good", but on the principle of "perhaps that will keep me from starving to death, for at least a while longer".

We're too far removed from a survival-mode society to really appreciate that.

From: THHGTTG
3 stages of society, and the question asked in each stage:
Survival- "How can we find food?"
Inquiry- "Why do we need to eat?"
Sophistication- "Where shall we have lunch?"

[Absolute]

One might also wonder about caviar.

[essell]

The one I always wonder about is mayonnaise. Who says "Hey, you know what would be great on this sandwich? Some eggs, beaten in oil with lemon juice and herbs until the mixture becomes soemthing totally different in texture!"
Unlike many of the things in this thread Mayonnaise wasn't an accident.
IIRC it was invented by a French Chef after the king ordered him to "short circuit" the cow from the butter making process. Mayonnaise was the result of many experiments.

[Sitnam]

I imagine there was a college kid who woke up from a wicked hangover one early sunday and stumbled down to his near empty refridgerator to find only vodka, tomato juice, A1, tabasco sauce, Worcheshire Sauce, Celery salt and half a can of stale beer left and decided 'what the hell'.

[silenus]

Well, definitely the "half a can of stale beer" part. That's just disgusting. But the cocktail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_(cocktail)) you are mutilating was invented by George Jessel/Ferdinand Petiot.

A1? :confused:

[HazelNutCoffee]

Flour has always puzzled me. A few weeks ago one of my girlfriends and I were high as kites and got to wondering how people ever invented flour. And WHY.

"Oh look at these little brown things. Let's dry them out and grind them into powder."

"All right. But it tastes like ass."

"Well, we'll add water to it. And an egg. And heat it up. Oooh, it's all puffy now."

[Skald the Rhymer]

Often I have wondered who first thought of hunting mammoth. I figure this person was not identical to the first person who deliberately killed a mammoth, as the likely response to "Let's go kill the giant elephant!" was probably "Sure. You go first. Oh, and don't think you have to come back anytime soon."

[Skald the Rhymer]

Exactly what you think. There's even a carving on a section of Rouen Cathedral that has satirical images of various professions, this one depicting a doctor taking a sip.

If I recall aright, an ancient test for diabetes was to see if ants (notorious for going after sweet things) would cluster around the urine of a suspected diabetic, so perhaps the ant-test preceded the human tongue one.

[Tenar]

From: THHGTTG
3 stages of society, and the question asked in each stage:
Survival- "How can we find food?"
Inquiry- "Why do we need to eat?"
Sophistication- "Where shall we have lunch?"

The fourth question (from someone feeling less than sophisticated for having to ask) - "What does THHGTTG stand for?"

[Skald the Rhymer]

The fourth question (from someone feeling less than sophisticated for having to ask) - "What does THHGTTG stand for?"


:eek:

The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy!!!!!!

[Skald the Rhymer]

You know, most food was initially consumed not on the principle of "I be that'll taste good", but on the principle of "perhaps that will keep me from starving to death, for at least a while longer".



QtM, I think that's the point of people wondering about flour and such. If you're living in a subsistence economy, how do you make the jump to all the steps necessary to turn wheat into bread?

(Answer: it wasn't one big steps, but a lot of little ones. Like evolution, only with yeast.)

[rocking chair]

one of my fav. calvin and hobbes has calvin wondering who discovered milk.

i'll drink what ever comes out of those.

[Inner Stickler]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A very good book.

[devilsknew]

Many human innovations seem to me to necessarily have been the product of sheer lunacy. For example, I have several times read versions of the following:

But the obvious question is, why the hell would they try that in the first place? Was it some bored high school students hanging out amidst the corpses one day, and one says, "Dude, I heard you can totally get high by snorting the scabs off of one of these stiffs." His buddies: "Let's totally try it!" They later notice they are all immune to smallpox. Probably not, but who the hell thought this would ever be a good idea (even though it did turn out to be a good idea)?

What innovation has made you say, "What the hell made them try THAT?"

And if you have an explanation for why any of these were tried, please satisfy our curiosity.
I have a general theory, but no idea if it is correct. I am not sure, and have no way to actually verify.

I believe this discovery had to do with the basic asian principle of "likes" and the underlying principles of a type of animism. A modern example is the various animal penii and certain organs prescribed in chinese medicine for "sexual virility" and the idea that ingestion of like might impart like. Although these may be a bit dubious to the modern sensibility, a little hair of the dog that bit you has been a constant to immunity and "possesion". The chinese probably also knew that a bit of poison over a long time could also innoculate you to the effects of that poison. And that bit of knowledge probably came from snake handlers.

[ryobserver]

"It was a brave man that first ate an oyster." --Johnathan Swift


Haggis. I once described to a coworker how haggis is made--mince up sheep innards, mix with oatmeal and onions, stuff in sheep stomach, boil. He bellowed, "WHY?"

Now, I know it makes perfect sense to eat the innards all at once after slaughtering a sheep, or anything else; they're too nourishing to throw away, and they don't keep worth a damn. Hence the mixed grill. But why make a stomach-size sausage of them?


Speaking of milk, what about cheese? "Hey, the stuff that comes out of the she-beast's bag got all thick and smells like feet. And THIS batch got blue mold all over it. Let's eat!"

[maggenpye]

[QUOTE=ryobserverHaggis. I once described to a coworker how haggis is made--mince up sheep innards, mix with oatmeal and onions, stuff in sheep stomach, boil. He bellowed, "WHY?"

Now, I know it makes perfect sense to eat the innards all at once after slaughtering a sheep, or anything else; they're too nourishing to throw away, and they don't keep worth a damn. Hence the mixed grill. But why make a stomach-size sausage of them?[/QUOTE]

Because stomach on it's own is tripe - eww. Rather spicy minced innards to prevent the waste of protein, than tripe and onions!

A friend of mine still hasn't forgiven me for my comment about pork sausages - "How else could they sell you snouts?"

[Beware of Doug]

Olives. Right off the tree, they're unpalatably bitter. What was the thinking here? "Hey, everything's better with salt. Let's soak 'em in this container of brine for a couple weeks and see what develops."

Then too, sauerkraut. "Ach, du lieber! Zis cabbage iss round ze bend." "Nein, nein. Zat iss impossible! I vill taste it to be sure...It iss gut! Better zan usual even!"

[devilsknew]

Ultimately, I have a food theory about fermentation and hence preservation as relates to the higher function of instinctual burying as demonsrtedaed by various animals- mammalian, avian, icthy, etc. Burying foods before, during, and after the winter in storage is instinctual and is perhaps the first preservation method. If one were to bury a carcass in specific mineralizations, preservation might occur. Otherwise fermentation, or even refrigeration in the winter. Environment and ecology dictate advances.

[yams!!]

Sometimes I like to think how the evolution of culture would have evolved if it was entirely up to me. Like, if I could go back to cave man times and play it like a video game with infinite lives - how long would have it taken me to figure things out. Would I have figured out fire? Would I have figured out that putting food over fire is the first step on the pathway to deliciousness? Would I have figured out how to selectively breed wild plants to produce the most productive strains of vegetables? The answer to all of the above questions is generally "no." Had it all been on me, we'd still be eating twigs and berries and sheltering in caves - yeast and grains, particularly, are something I would NEVER have figured out.

This depresses me, to realize that I'm dumber than a caveman, so I dont think about it too often. But eventually I forget that it depresses me, and the cycle starts afresh.


But that's not why I am posting in this thread. I am posting about cassava.


I used to live in Zambia, in a part of the country where the staple food is something called cassava nshima, which is essentially gelatinous gray play-do. It is as delicious and nutritious as it sounds - no protein worth mentioning, rather, varying doses of cyanide, off-putting taste, smell, and appearance, and if not made correctly, it sticks to your fingers like play-do laced with superglue. The term for this sticky, improperly prepared nshima involves an adjective which is also used to describe a certain kind of diarrhea. I actually really like it now, and sometimes crave it, but it is a textbook definition of "acquired taste."

Anyway. How is cassava nshima prepared?

First, you have to plant some cassava.

Then, wait two or three years.

Then, dig up the tuber - it will be, if you are lucky, about the size of a well-fattened forearm, hard as a rock, and covered in something that is an exact cross between tree bark and coconut husk.

Now, dealing with a rock-like tuber is difficult, so you want to soften it up a bit. To do this, first find a mostly stagnant pool of water. Place the tubers in the water, and come back four or five days later, once the cassava has started to rot. (You'll know it is ready by the smell.)

Now you can peel off the brown bark-like layer, and also a weird, vaguely pink, plastic-y, seemingly-unbiodegradable layer -throw this away- and you have something that both looks and smells like a pair of soggily wadded-up tube socks. Dig in with your fingers, remove the fibrous bit in the middle, and now you are ready to make nshima.

Well, first you have to pound it, and dry it out, and pound it again, and dry it out again, then maybe pound it and dry it once more time, then sift it. But then you are ready to make nshima!


And cassava is not even native to Zambia! It comes from South America! Not to further denigrate a foodstuff of which I am actually quite fond, but cassava tubers dont seem the kind to charter a boat and sail themselves halfway around the world, which means that some poor deluded person once thought to themselves "This stuff is great! All you have to do is get it to ferment in some dirty water, and it comes out tasting kind of like feet! I shall travel the world, spreading its cyanolicious joy to all corners of the globe!"

To me, cassava does not seem like the kind of thing that would make it on the short list of things to export to other continents. But then, to me, things that you have to let rot in a puddle before you can eat it would not be on my short list of Tasty Things. And then I would have missed out, so there you go.



love
yams!!

[devilsknew]

A Mediterraneaner might have plucked a long gone fallen olive from the ocean. A seaside olive tree or its predecessor might have shed into the sea.

[BluePitbull]

A popular cuisine in the Bahamas: Conch
Imagine an ugly scavaging sea living creature related to the snail. Now Imagine eaqting it raw . I wonder who was the first person to try that.

[devilsknew]

But why make a stomach-size sausage of them?
Form and function. A stomach is to be stuffed.

[AskNott]

I think a lot of these questions have the same answer as a modern redneck joke: "Hey, watch this!"

[The Them]

In the same category as fugu - almonds are poisonous. So who got the idea to plant orchards of them and sell the results for high prices?

In fact, it's even weirder than fugu. Puffers are fish, fish are edible, so after a few thousand tragic accidents, you learn these parts of this fish are bad news. But ancient almonds- be like munching a cyanide capsule. Makes you wonder why they bothered with hemlock. There's good reason to NEVER EVEN TRY to eat one of those lil' nut things. Not go looking for some mutant variety that JUST MIGHT not be fatal. (I got this from some book about ancient agriculture I read years ago).

Oh - and in the "Watch THIS!" category - chile peppers. Need I say more?

[panache45]

One of the most popular new medications for diabetics is Byetta. Its active ingredient is a protein, exenatide, that was initially discovered in the saliva of the Gila monster. "Hmmmm, let's see if we can get some saliva from this lizard, and let's inject it into Uncle Bob and see if it lowers his blood sugar."

And then there is:
CIRCUMCISION.

[Ale]

Anchovies. On pizza.

My case has been rested.

No no, pineapple on a pizza, that´s sacrilegous.

I offer you durian.
The bloody thing looks more suited to lob at your enemies in anger than the source for dessert. After you get through the large, sharp spines on the outside the first thing you get for your troubles is a waff of gaseous vileness, it reeks to high heaven and back. But still, you haven´t eaten in two weeks so it´s a matter of life and death, so you brave up and tuck in to find the fruit of doom tastes like leper ass.

When I visited Singapore I saw that they had the common sense to ban the thing from the subways, hefty fine and all; the smell of even an unopened durian is very powerful and merciless.

[BaneSidhe]

My question is who was the first person to get up the nerve to ride a bull?

[Dunderman]

Metal extraction from ore. So, I take this bit of rock that looks slightly different from this bit of rock, and I heat it up until a strange liquid drips out of it, and I let that liquid solidify in a useful shape. That sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon.

I ran this by a couple of historically inclined friends of mine, who suggested that people first found clumps of impure oxidized metal in bogs and such. Oh yeah, a prehistoric dude is hiking around the countryside, comes across a ball of rust in a bog, and immediately thinks "you know, I'll bet you can make a sword out of that".

[Audrey Levins]

I just wanna know who invented the modern idea of cake. And frosting.

I get the whole cracker/bread thing. Rising agents etc. Sounds like somebody left the dough out too long with wonderful results.

But the whole sugar/dessert/sweet thing? And then coating it in delicious frosting? And then somebody said "There shall be cream cheese" and somebody had to invent red velvet and carrot cake?

It makes me religious. This whole idea.

*sigh of bliss*

[Mangetout]

Flour has always puzzled me. A few weeks ago one of my girlfriends and I were high as kites and got to wondering how people ever invented flour. And WHY.Flour is what your teeth make when you eat grass seeds - it's a fairly easy step from there to pounding it (rather than grinding) to make a coarse meal.

[Derleth]

Cobol is a useful language because its semantics match pretty well to what banks, for example, need to do with computers. However, its syntax is a horrible misbegotten mess apparently derived from the idea that programming is only hard because computers don't speak a restrictive English-like pidgin. Never mind the mental discipline required to structure both data and code in a way that both manages complexity and allows useful algorithms to fall out of the model. No, what we need is this:

MULTIPLY B BY B GIVING B-SQUARED.
MULTIPLY 4 BY A GIVING FOUR-A.
MULTIPLY FOUR-A BY C GIVING FOUR-A-C.
SUBTRACT FOUR-A-C FROM B-SQUARED GIVING RESULT-1.
COMPUTE RESULT-2 = RESULT-1 ** .5.
SUBTRACT B FROM RESULT-2 GIVING NUMERATOR.
MULTIPLY 2 BY A GIVING DENOMINATOR.
DIVIDE NUMERATOR BY DENOMINATOR GIVING X.

instead of this:

X = (-B + (B ** 2 - (4 * A * C)) ** .5) / (2 * A)

Genius. Pure genius.

The syntax of TECO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Editor_and_Corrector) is another kind of WTF: The language evolved directly from the editor's command language, which means all kinds of funky control characters are part of the syntax. It's difficult to edit TECO programs on many systems, not least because many editors insist the files are binary as opposed to text. This is a perfect example of people getting used to an otherwise intolerable situation by a process of slow acclimatization: TECO grew into a Turing-complete programming language feature by feature, entirely ad-hoc and unplanned. By the time it was being used to implement the first versions of Emacs, there was no escape.

[gwendee]

Not food related.

Perhaps other people who have worked in retail have encountered this. If you are presented with a credit card that your card reader is not reading sometimes you can solve this by placing the card into a thin plastic bag and swiping it again.

I first encountered it as a customer. I knew there was a problem with my bank card. I had a funky magnetic key to my office door and although I had been warned not to, somehow let it cozy up to my bank card. I handed my card over with my usual "sorry it's demagnetized" spiel. The cashier said "no problem" and instead of typing in the handy 16 digit number stuck it in a shopping bag and voila! I've seen others do it and have done it myself since then, but I always wonder what the person who figured that out tried first...

[jjimm]

Worcheshire Sauce.It's Worcestershire sauce. Pron. "WUSS-tur-shur".

Chocolate is the one I can't get my head round. The beans are inedible. They have to be fermented, which can result in failure with only a day or two's margin. Then they have to be dried. Then they have to be de-hulled. Then they have to be powdered. Even then, they're hideously bitter.

I'm damn glad the Mayans underwent that torture, though.

[jjimm]

It's Worcestershire sauce.It just occurred to me that this is another one. "Rotten fish and tamarind - delicious! Furthermore, let's put some into an alcoholic tomato soup and drink it."

[WhyNot]

Raw grains ----> boiled grains ----> coarse meal mush ---> coarse meal fry cakes ----> beer
Raw grains ----> boiled grains
Raw grains ----> boiled grains ----> flour ----> pancakes ----> bread

I get it. Both beer and bread came from batter sitting around without refrigeration. When you're hungry, you're gonna eat it even if it smells a little weird and is bubbling. That's a fairly easy progression where each step produces something nutritious and even yummy, so there's motivation to keep doing what you're doing because you're not "wasting" precious food. If the fry cake is a little smoother this time, great! If not, no worries, it's still a fry cake, eat it anyway.

What I simply cannot grok (and I'm an herbalist) is these bizarre psychotropic and medicinal compounds which come out of the rainforest as 6 herbs and a fungus in extremely critical proportions with multiple manufacturing steps, and if you get just one bit of it wrong, the whole thing is bloody well useless. Now that we have a grasp of chemistry, we know that you have to heat it to X degrees to denature that protein before mixing it with Y compound to get Z chemical reactions....but how the great loving fuck did they figure that out without knowing the chemical constituents of those plants?!

[beowulff]

In the same category as fugu - almonds are poisonous. So who got the idea to plant orchards of them and sell the results for high prices?

In fact, it's even weirder than fugu. Puffers are fish, fish are edible, so after a few thousand tragic accidents, you learn these parts of this fish are bad news. But ancient almonds- be like munching a cyanide capsule. Makes you wonder why they bothered with hemlock. There's good reason to NEVER EVEN TRY to eat one of those lil' nut things. Not go looking for some mutant variety that JUST MIGHT not be fatal. (I got this from some book about ancient agriculture I read years ago).

Oh - and in the "Watch THIS!" category - chile peppers. Need I say more?
Almonds are not poisonous in any reasonable quantity.
However, rhubarb leaves are poisonous, but the stalk makes a delicious pie that washes away the bitter taste of shame and humiliation. Who figured that out?

[Bookkeeper]

Not food related.

Perhaps other people who have worked in retail have encountered this. If you are presented with a credit card that your card reader is not reading sometimes you can solve this by placing the card into a thin plastic bag and swiping it again.

I first encountered it as a customer. I knew there was a problem with my bank card. I had a funky magnetic key to my office door and although I had been warned not to, somehow let it cozy up to my bank card. I handed my card over with my usual "sorry it's demagnetized" spiel. The cashier said "no problem" and instead of typing in the handy 16 digit number stuck it in a shopping bag and voila! I've seen others do it and have done it myself since then, but I always wonder what the person who figured that out tried first...
IIRC it's not that it's demagnetized - if it's scratched badly enough, the scratches act as notch antennas to reradiate the RF signal from the card reader and interfere with the return signal from the magnetic strip so that it can't be recognized. The RF signal is very weak, so wrapping the card in paper or plastic will attenuate the signal to the point where it no longer interferes with reading the mag strip. How did someone come up with this fix? Probably the equivalent of punching random keys to try and fix a frozen computer - "Maybe it's dirty and the dirt's getting on the reader?" "Wrap it in something so the dirt can't rub off!"

[FlyingRat]

<too obvious> Puffer fish sushi.

"Here try this. . . oops."

Fugu bones have been found in Jomon-period (pre-500 BCE) middens in Japan. Boggles the mind.

[Santo Rugger]

Chocolate is the one I can't get my head round. The beans are inedible. <snip>

Cacao beans themselves may be edible, but the mucus surrounding them is pretty tasty. I went for a canoe ride in Brazil, and they would be floating by. We'd pick one up, break it open, suck the goodness off the bean, and then spit it out. Good stuff, very sweet.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

Cacao beans themselves may be edible, but the mucus surrounding them is pretty tasty. I went for a canoe ride in Brazil, and they would be floating by. We'd pick one up, break it open, suck the goodness off the bean, and then spit it out. Good stuff, very sweet.
You ate beans out of a Brazilian river? For how many weeks after that were you shitting intestinal flukes?

[Waenara]

Almonds are not poisonous in any reasonable quantity.Domesticated almonds aren't poisonous - the original wild ones were. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almonds) (my emphasis added):The wild form of domesticated almond grows in parts of the Levant; almonds must first have been taken into cultivation in this region. The fruit of the wild forms contains the glycoside amygdalin, "which becomes transformed into deadly prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) after crushing, chewing, or any other injury to the seed". Before cultivation and domestication occurred, wild almonds were harvested as food and doubtless were processed by leaching or roasting to remove their toxicity.

However, domesticated almonds are not toxic Jared Diamond argues that a common genetic mutation causes an absence of glycoside amygdalin, and this mutant was grown by early farmers, "at first unintentionally in the garbage heaps and later intentionally in their orchards". Zohary and Hopf believe that almonds were one of the earliest domesticated fruit-trees due to "the ability of the grower to raise attractive almonds from seed. Thus, in spite of the fact[citation needed] that this plant does not lend itself to propagation from suckers or from cuttings, it could have been[vague] domesticated even before the introduction of grafting". Domesticated almonds appear in the Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC) of the Near East, or possibly a little earlier. A well-known archaeological example of almond is the fruits found in Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt (c. 1325 BC), probably imported from the Levant. The domesticated form can ripen fruit as far north as the British Isles.

[Lemur866]

I don't understand what's so hard to understand about bread and baked goods.

People ate raw grass seeds. But that's pretty indigestible, so they kept trying to come up with methods to make them worth eating. Getting rid of the hulls. Drying them. Soaking them. Boiling them. Grinding them. Toasting them. Mixing in other palatable ingredients.

Take a mix of all those methods in a variety of orders, and you eventually come up with all the thousands of permutations of bread. None of the innovations are particularly novel. And note that where wheat wasn't the staple grain, bread wasn't invented, because only wheat has a high enough gluten content to form bread. In asia, rice is simply boiled. In the Americas, corn was made into flatbread tortillas. And note that quick breads that use baking soda/powder are very recent innovations, in ancient times quick breads were all unleavened.

Other methods of preparing foods that are toxic in raw form seem pretty straightforward as well. People know that some roots and fruits and stems and such are edible, while others aren't. But they're hungry. After eating the edible tubers, they find some inedible tubers and try various methods of rendering them edible. Does boiling them work? How about with multiple changes of water? How about drying, then boiling? How about salting? How about fermenting, then drying, then boiling? And so on. When you've got hungry people who can see by analogy that a food is potentially edible, and give them several hundred years of on again and off again experimentation, and it makes sense.

And fermentation is one of those things where it's damn hard to prevent in the first place, so any food stored for long periods is likely to ferment in some damn way or another, and people notice that foods stored in different ways resulted in different outcomes, some more palatable than others.

So blue cheese didn't arise in one step. Rather, first was milk. You let raw milk set out overnight at room temperature and you're going to get yogurt. Let the liquid drain from the yogurt and you've got the first cheese. Other things like rennet have an obvious origin...someone tried to store milk in a natural container, in this case a calf's stomach, and it coagulated. And they ate it anyway. And most of the bacteria and yeasts that create different types of cheese are, get this, human skin bacteria, and it's easy to see why.

Deliberate creation of alcohol is easy to explain as well. Any fruit juice that sits around for a day starts to ferment. People soon realize that any sweet liquid that sits around ferments. Except there's only so much fruit to go around, so they look around for other sources of sweetness, and remember that sprouted grains are sweet, so let's try that, and now we have beer.

Now, smelting metals. The first metals were all native metals, things like gold and silver and copper that can be found as simple raw lumps of metal. So tools made of cold formed native copper are the first metal tools. But copper is pretty rare, and copper nuggets are hard to find, but eventually they learn to smelt the ores. And this was probably done when people looking for metal nuggets built campfires and eventually noticed that sometimes little bits of naturally smelted metal were left at the bottom, tin and lead can be smelted at campfire heats. And noticing that metal nuggets can be found in some campfires naturally leads to various experiments with various rocks and higher and higher temperatures until we get the 7 ancient metals...gold, silver, mercury, tin, copper, lead, and eventually iron.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

The one I always wonder about it artichokes. "Hey look! That big thistle over there has a bud full of spikes on it. Let's cut that sucker off and boil it for a while, and then pull the petals/spikes off one at a time and scrape the 'meat' from them with our teeth. Hmm. Let's dip 'em in garlic butter first. Bingo! And since the 'meat' on the petals is so good, we can cut up the part of the stem right under the blossom and eat that, too!"

I'm convinced that snails are just an excuse to eat garlic butter. Nobody actually likes the taste of the snails themselves. Do they?
My question is who was the first person to get up the nerve to ride a bull?You need to spend more time around drunk cowboys (or maybe not). I've got a friend that would try to ride just about anything after a twelve-pack. And if he said no, all you'd have to do is question his manhood or bet him five bucks.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

I've got a friend that would try to ride just about anything after a twelve-pack. And if he said no, all you'd have to do is question his manhood or bet him five bucks.
Or triple-dog dare him!

My new anthropological theory: The triple-dog dare--the mother of invention.

[Danalan]

Fugu bones have been found in Jomon-period (pre-500 BCE) middens in Japan. Boggles the mind.Maybe the Fugu developed the poison glands to protect themselves after people started eating them.

Could be a type of human-enabled evolution. If the fishermen could see at a glance an external characteristic of a more poisonous Fugu, thus selectively (over)harvesting a less poisonous variant, the Fugu may have become deadly fairly recently.

[LeeshaJoy]

Cooking. Any animal with half a brain knows that fire = bad, so how did we get the idea that deliberately sticking our food in fire for a while would make it better?

For that matter, how did humans get the idea of harnessing this deadly forest-ravaging force for heat and light to begin with?

[LeeshaJoy]

Metal extraction from ore. So, I take this bit of rock that looks slightly different from this bit of rock, and I heat it up until a strange liquid drips out of it, and I let that liquid solidify in a useful shape. That sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon.

I ran this by a couple of historically inclined friends of mine, who suggested that people first found clumps of impure oxidized metal in bogs and such. Oh yeah, a prehistoric dude is hiking around the countryside, comes across a ball of rust in a bog, and immediately thinks "you know, I'll bet you can make a sword out of that".

Actually, I read somewhere that the first metal ores were found in a potter's kiln.

[Euryphaessa]

I think I remember reading in my chemistry textbook that copper was probably discovered when ancient people noticed it dripping out of some of the rocks that surrounded their fire.

[Mangetout]

IIRC it's not that it's demagnetized - if it's scratched badly enough, the scratches act as notch antennas to reradiate the RF signal from the card reader and interfere with the return signal from the magnetic strip so that it can't be recognized. The RF signal is very weak, so wrapping the card in paper or plastic will attenuate the signal to the point where it no longer interferes with reading the mag strip. How did someone come up with this fix? Probably the equivalent of punching random keys to try and fix a frozen computer - "Maybe it's dirty and the dirt's getting on the reader?" "Wrap it in something so the dirt can't rub off!"
Is this a whoosh? Magnetic stripes on bank cards don't work by RF - they work by magnetism - in the same way as audio tape and hard drives.

[jnglmassiv]

I was reading about the discovery of different artificial sweeteners not long ago. Both saccharine and Nutrasweet were discovered after chemists licked their fingers. :smack: As I recall, LSD was discovered in a similarly nonprofessional setting. I wonder what other common but undiscovered substances I could be tripping on right now?
*grabs keys, heads for autoparts store*

[Ale]

Cooking. Any animal with half a brain knows that fire = bad, so how did we get the idea that deliberately sticking our food in fire for a while would make it better?

For that matter, how did humans get the idea of harnessing this deadly forest-ravaging force for heat and light to begin with?

I can imagine a group of caveman cuddled around a fire while a snowstorm rages outside their cave, they are knawing at some frozen chunks of mammoth meat when one has the idea of putting the meat to the fire to thaw it faster. When the caveman tries it finds out that not only is not frozen, but it smells and tastes a lot better now.

[WhyNot]

I can imagine a group of caveman cuddled around a fire while a snowstorm rages outside their cave, they are knawing at some frozen chunks of mammoth meat when one has the idea of putting the meat to the fire to thaw it faster. When the caveman tries it finds out that not only is not frozen, but it smells and tastes a lot better now.
Heh. I always imagined some 7 year old playing with his food near the fire, perhaps first impaling it on a stick and poking the fire with it.

"Og! Stop that! Stop that right now, do you hear me? You're going to drop your nice mastodon steak and then what will you eat, Mister?"

*poke, poke, fall*

"Dammit, OG! No more mastodon for you! You fish out that nasty fire-d steak and eat that or go hungry!"

Can you tell I camp with a lot of kids? :D

[pepperlandgirl]

Last night I was watching Bizarre Foods, and he had something on there that just blew my mind. Shark meat. Fermented, rotting, shark meat. (http://uncutvideo.aol.com/videos/10d15f5ee36c07fbf8e955a57bf79c21)

Ok, so apparently hundreds of years ago, a few guys in Iceland were discussing the food shortage problem. There's all these sharks in the water, but nobody can eat them because they are toxic. The poison apparently causes bloody diarrhea, which could lead to death. But our guys are determined, damnit. They try cooking...but people still have the bloody runs. Not good. So, the next logical step after cooking is fermentation.

What?

How does that even follow?! "It's poison when it's fresh. Let's leave it out for six months and try again! Oh, the horrible, horrible smell is a sign that it's tasty!" Did they get the village idiot to try it?

[Death of Rats]

Anyway, what I always wondered is how they figured out which parts of the fugu pufferfish were edible.

Trial and error

[DocCathode]

One of my favorite comics is Arsenic Lullaby. A recurring feature in Arsenic Lullaby is a secret agent who works for the Department Of Things Not Yet Tried. You see, the government has discovered that so many great discoveries were accidents. They reason that there are more great discoveries waiting. So they have an agency to try unusual things on the off chance they will lead to great discoveries.

[danceswithcats]

According to our roaster, it started with Kaldi the goatherd (http://www.dancinggoats.com/The_Story_W33C236.cfm), in Ethiopia, noticing that his goats 'danced' after eating the berries from a particular shrub. Hence the name of our espresso: Dancing Goats (http://www.dancinggoats.com/).

Not too much of a stretch for the goatherd, finding the coffee cherries unpalatable, would eventually note that the pits contained the lovely stimulant (caffeine). Efforts to process this stimulant into a more and more palatable form continue to this day. That makes a measure of sense. Who looked at his buddy and said, "Hey, check out that funny looking critter taking a dump over there. Howsabout we roast the poop, grind it up, and mix it with hot water?" "Mmm! I bet that will be some tasty shit!" :dubious:

so you brave up and tuck in to find the fruit of doom tastes like leper ass. Your frame of reference being what, exactly?

[Ale]

so you brave up and tuck in to find the fruit of doom tastes like leper ass.

Your frame of reference being what, exactly?

Sorry, I swore to never, ever, reveals any details about that.

[danceswithcats]

Sorry, I swore to never, ever, reveals any details about that. Nodnod. Wise man.

[Danalan]

That makes a measure of sense. Who looked at his buddy and said, "Hey, check out that funny looking critter taking a dump over there. Howsabout we roast the poop, grind it up, and mix it with hot water?" "Mmm! I bet that will be some tasty shit!"Actually, the best coffee I've ever had began just that way. Are you familiar with Kopi Luwak coffee (http://rockhoppersdailygrind.blogspot.com/2007/11/coffee-monkey-business.html)?

[Mosier]

Deviating from food here, what about the guys who invented seriously dangerous stuff, like combustion engines? Who in the world could have thought that BLOWING SOMETHING UP is a good, perfectly safe way to turn a motor?

[Don't fight the hypothetical]

Olives. Right off the tree, they're unpalatably bitter. What was the thinking here?
When I first saw this thread this was my contribution. I've had olives from the tree. To think you could find them edible in any form was thinking waaaay outside of the box.
Cooking. Any animal with half a brain knows that fire = bad, so how did we get the idea that deliberately sticking our food in fire for a while would make it better?
My guess is that EM (early man) was walking through a wild fire area and found dead, burnt animals and thought , "Hey, this is not bad!".
I don't understand what's so hard to understand about bread and baked goods.
Then you m ust be a baking Og. Even with directions I don't do bread. To think that someone concieved it before it happened boggles the mind.
Your frame of reference being what, exactly?
A starting point. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vlEavUH9ng)

[Hostile Dialect]

Oh - and in the "Watch THIS!" category - chile peppers. Need I say more?
Well, capsaicin is really quite addictive, as anyone who's watched their tolerance rapidly shoot upward knows. Heroin was a piece of cake to kick (for me), but I'll never kick capsaicin. And I've been told by my doctor that I'll have to when I get to my 60s, or my digestive system will really pay for it (some thing or another that apparently runs in the family). That will be a really, really tough time for me, I know it already. I slather almost everything I eat in jalapeno sauce if I don't actually cover it in jalapenos, and I've been known to use Blair's Sudden Death Sauce to spice up salsas, soups, ramen, etc. Those rare meals which don't involve those three options generally have some other hot sauce on them, like Thai peanut sauce, Sriracha, etc. I can sort of see how chiles would have looked like nutritious food, and once people started trying them, they got hooked.


how the great loving fuck did they figure that out without knowing the chemical constituents of thoseplants?!
What I wonder is, how did the ancients ever figure out that salvia was at all useful? Even with our modern 5x-, 10x- and 15x-strength enhanced salvia, smoking it these days is more often an abject lesson in patience than it is a mind blowing psychedelic experience (although it can really blow minds when you do get there). (Don't freak out, mods, salvia is legal on a federal level.) Furthermore, it's so much more likely to produce a bad trip than any of the litany of psychedelic mushrooms plus cannabis, ergot, morning glory, etc. I kind of wonder how long it took to finally figure out that it had some worth to it.

I mean, the first person who smoked cannabis felt something, I'm sure. The first person to have datura tea knew they had a potent psychotropic on their hands. The first person who chewed on a coca leaf knew what he was dealing with . But how many tries did it take to figure out salvia? I wonder at it to this day.

[OneCentStamp]

Trial and errorMore like trial and instant death? :p

[Ale]

A starting point. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vlEavUH9ng)

:eek:

When I saw the guy opening his mouth and raise the elephant dung I closed the tab so quickly that he mouse left burning skid marks on the pad a la Back to the Future.

[Anne Neville]

Honey. You have to go through a cloud of bees to get it, AIUI. Who would do that without knowing in advance that what you were going to get out of it was going to taste awfully good?

Mushrooms. So many of them are dangerous, and so many of the dangerous ones and the safe ones look alike.

Milk. "That calf is drinking its mother's milk- maybe we should try that"???

Grafting a part of one plant onto a totally different plant. Why would anyone think this would work?

I always imagined some 7 year old playing with his food near the fire, perhaps first impaling it on a stick and poking the fire with it.

"Og! Stop that! Stop that right now, do you hear me? You're going to drop your nice mastodon steak and then what will you eat, Mister?"

*poke, poke, fall*

"Dammit, OG! No more mastodon for you! You fish out that nasty fire-d steak and eat that or go hungry!"

Having been made by my mom to eat burned fish because I set the oven to the wrong temperature, I can totally see this happening.

[Lightray]

Milk. "That calf is drinking its mother's milk- maybe we should try that"???
:dubious: You're postulating that some humans would have been unfamiliar with the idea of milk? Really?

I'd think that would've been just about the easiest leap of logic of them all: Hey, my goat has those same things that Mom has! I really liked those!

[Anne Neville]

:dubious: You're postulating that some humans would have been unfamiliar with the idea of milk? Really?

No, just the idea of drinking it from a species other than our own. Especially a species that might have a tendency to kick anyone who tried something like that...

[Hockey Monkey]

Three pages in and no one has mentioned balut? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut) Or Thousand Year Egg? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_year_egg)

[DKW]

Christmas trees.

"Lets go cut down a perfectly good tree, bring it inside, and see if we can get it to stand up again!"
On a personal note, I've always been a little curious as to how the marathon became a worldwide phenomenon. "Lessee, how long to make the standard distance run...oh, look, here's a completely random distance run by some obscure, unnamed messenger following some random battle in ancient history! And he died afterward! That'd be perfect!"

[Zsofia]

My question is who was the first person to get up the nerve to ride a bull?
Keep in mind that we didn't used to have bulls. We had aurochs. Which were evil minded mankilling devil cows. So we took them at serious risk to life and limb, domesticated them all over the world into a zillion different variants, and then rode the ones that were still mean as a sport. When you think about it, bull riding is a pussy sport - those were the guys without the balls to ride an auroch.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

...those were the guys without the balls to ride an auroch.Actually, they used to have balls. Then they rode an auroch. With horns. And now they don't...

[Lemur866]

Then you m ust be a baking Og. Even with directions I don't do bread. To think that someone concieved it before it happened boggles the mind.

But my point is that some caveman wasn't walking through a patch of grass and suddenly the idea of wonder bread popped into his head.

He walked through the patch of grass, and he started gnawing the ripe seeds of the grass.

Some other guy much later was walking through another patch of grass and noticed that this patch had much bigger seeds that the other patches, and figured out that gnawing these seeds would be much more reasonable that gnawing the tiny seeds of other grass species.

Some other guy much later thought the grass seeds were tough as hell, and got the idea to soak them in water for a while before eating them.

Some other guy had the idea to boil them before eating them.

Some other guy had the idea to squash the seeds between rocks to save hours of chewing time.

Some other guy had the idea to toast the seeds before eating them.

Some other guy had the idea to mix the squashed seeds with water, THEN boil them.

Some other guy had the idea to mix the squashed seeds with water, then toast them. And only here do we have the first flatbread.

Some other guy mixed the flour and water and let it sit for a while, and when he went to toast it, noticed that the dough was puffy. And only then do we have loaf bread.

And some other guy decided to let that puffing up happen on purpose every time.

And some other guys decided to add other random ingredients to the bread...dried fruit, olive oil, butter, onions, herbs, eggs, honey, meat, nuts, whatever. And people discover that adding eggs and honey and butter to the dough makes something really nice...cake. But it's not like they saw bread and set out to invent sheet cake, they just added ingredients and cakes and cookies naturally evolved out that over thousands of years of baking.

And so on. If you want to prevent dough from rising, you have to bake it within a few minutes of being mixed, because otherwise wild yeasts are going to make it rise, and you'd have to go to some effort to prevent this from happening. It's like fruit juice turning to alcohol, nobody had to do it on purpose because it happens naturally. If you've got a toddler who hides bottles of juice, you've experienced the same thing.

Remember that for thousands of years since the neolithic, the majority of humanity's calories have come from a few staple foods. If you eat bread every single day for your entire life, and your ancestors did that before you, and their ancestors before them, and their ancestors before them, all the way back to some village 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, you can imagine that just about every permutation on "things to do with wheat" has been tried over the millenia.

[SmartAleq]

Three pages in and no one has mentioned balut? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut) Or Thousand Year Egg? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_year_egg)

Well, balut is easy--I've had chickens hide eggs on me before and have found partially brooded eggs all mixed in with fresher eggs; it's a nasty surprise but I guess if someone were hungry enough and had already gone to all the trouble of boiling the egg they probably wouldn't cavil at just eating the damned thing. Not me, though, it just looks twice as pitiful as it does nasty and it looks VERY nasty.

[Cardinal]

I'm blocked from this URL at work, but this seems to relate to this discussion:

http://divinecaroline.com/article/22145/46057-it-s-preparation

[Jennshark]

I wonder about stuff like aspirin and other curative flora. "Man, have I ever got a headache; I think I'll go chew on that willow tree."

[Mangetout]

I wonder about stuff like aspirin and other curative flora. "Man, have I ever got a headache; I think I'll go chew on that willow tree."
Bark is useful for other things - willow bark, for example, can be used to make strong cord - and it's would not be at all unusual to be using your teeth at various points in that process. Although there's still the question of whether and how anybody could make the connection that it was medicinal.

[OtakuLoki]

Mangetout, that's simple, I think. ISTR that one of the steps for transforming barks into cord or rope involve chewing on the bark strip, not simply using one's teeth as a clamp. If you're chewing a three meter strip of willow bark to separate and condition the fibers, I think there's ample time to realize, "Gosh, my headache/footache/toothache/etc. no longer bothers me near as much. Next time I feel pain I'm going to make some cord!"

The one I'd like to understand is what on earth inspired Mr. Nobel to mix nitroglycerin with sawdust? Or, who was the first person to was cotton with nitric acid to make guncotton, and why? Now, I grant, some of these inventions we're talking about from more recent times, according to James Burke's Connections series, stem from a group of natural philosophers who would mix anything with anything else, just to see what might happen. (One of the things making Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver so fascinating, and disturbing, is reading many of the things that the Royal Society were testing, just because they could finally ask the questions.) Or worse, they would be operating from what seem to us to be tragically flawed premises - and found out other things than what they thought they were looking for. Marsh gas and mal aria, for example.

[DLuxN8R-13]

"Hey fellas, I've got a great idea! Let's go up in an airplane, and then jump out of it!"

[slaphead]

The one I'd like to understand is what on earth inspired Mr. Nobel to mix nitroglycerin with sawdust? Or, who was the first person to was cotton with nitric acid to make guncotton, and why?
Um, the first is perfectly obvious, actually. A little-known and mysterious mental process entitled 'science' led Mr Nobel to methodically experiment with various absorbent substances that could be used to store the lethally volatile nitroglycerin as a more stable solid, after one of the regrettably frequent explosions at the family nitroglycerin factory killed his kid brother. Sawdust was discarded pretty early I believe, in favour of diatomaceous earth.

Guncotton - apparently a Swiss scientist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Friedrich_Schönbein) spilt some nitric acid and wiped it up with a cotton apron - he then used his highly-trained observational skills to deduce that something unusual was happening when his apron subsequently vaporized in a flash.
Some further investigation then revealed that he had found a way of making explosive superior to the nitrated-starch and nitrated-paper methods, which in turn presumably came about since people were trying to improve on the ancient nitrated-(charcoal+sulphur) formula that was getting to be a bit old hat.

[aruvqan]

One of the most popular new medications for diabetics is Byetta. Its active ingredient is a protein, exenatide, that was initially discovered in the saliva of the Gila monster. "Hmmmm, let's see if we can get some saliva from this lizard, and let's inject it into Uncle Bob and see if it lowers his blood sugar."

And then there is:
CIRCUMCISION.

actually, I use byetta and love it.

It was explained to me fairly simply - someone noticed that the gila monster can go for extended periods without eating because it has very slow digestion. Humans have an enzyme that can also slow digestion, but it has an active level of less than 2 minutes, so unless you want to keep shooting up, you have to find something else similar in function. Some person had read about the enzyme that gila monsters have that gets triggered when food is in short supply, and noticed that it would work if modified into something a human can use, so they synthesized it and bobs your uncle...

Well, I should also admit I hate it when I have to take colchicine and indocin, as it gives me about 4 hours of extreme nausea...after my morning dose and evening dose=(

[Diceman]

In the same vein. The first person to see a lobster, crab, shrimp or craw-fish and thought, "Damn I bet that thing tastes good." was crazy.
Damn straight. They're all horribly grotesque-looking creatures. Lobsters look like some sort of hybrid between a cockroach and a scorpion. Absolutely not something that strikes me as being an appetizing meal.

[Kyla]

Cheese had to have been an accident.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Cheese had to have been an accident.


Check out the history section of this Wiki on Roquefort cheese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roquefort_%28cheese%29). That guy was clearly nuts.

[WhyNot]

Cheese had to have been an accident.
Alton Brown (who is not a nutritional anthropologist) suggests that cheese came about when nomadic horsemen used ruminant stomachs to store their milk for their daily rides. The rennet in the stomach linings mixed with the milk, and the continual jostling of the milk from the horse's movement churned things up enough to make cheese.

[Bookkeeper]

Is this a whoosh? Magnetic stripes on bank cards don't work by RF - they work by magnetism - in the same way as audio tape and hard drives.
The Master speaks (second question down)! (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040116.html)

[Vorpal Blade]

I wonder if mushrooms are edible?

[chowder]

Honey

"Hey I bet that stuff those buzzing creatures make taste good"

"I'm sure it does, stick your hand in and get some"

"Ouch, oh fuck, that hurts"

"Munch, munch, this tastes really good, why didya drop it?"

[WhyNot]

Honey

"Hey I bet that stuff those buzzing creatures make taste good"
:D Mmmmm...bee vomit!

My guess is they watched - from a distance - a bear (or a monkey) eating honey first. Maybe even found a bit of comb on a dead honey eater or in an abandoned cave. Only after that did they decide to go after it themselves.

[Illuminatiprimus]

The one for me is scrambled eggs - how'd you figure out that beating eggs, adding milk and then burning it all makes the loveliest form of egg known to man?

[OneCentStamp]

The one for me is scrambled eggs - how'd you figure out that beating eggs, adding milk and then burning it all makes the loveliest form of egg known to man?By trying to fry them over easy and failing badly? :p

My guess would be that the first scrambled eggs were scrambled in the pan, out of frustration, and only afterwards done on purpose. Plus they're a good way to "stretch" eggs in lean times.

[Hostile Dialect]

The one for me is scrambled eggs - how'd you figure out that beating eggs, adding milk and then burning it all makes the loveliest form of egg known to man?

Adding milk? Have I been doing it wrong this whole time?

Otherwise, I would say it's pretty easy to get from "I'm going to fry up some eggs" to "I hope you guys like scrambled eggs". Myself, any time I try to prepare eggs any other way, I end up with scrambled eggs.

[chowder]

Even boiled ones?

[Hostile Dialect]

Well, no, but I tend not to boil eggs.

[nocturnal_tick]

Makin' babies.

I bet she looked at him and said "You wanna put what where?"

I can't believe this one didn't get answered.

Boy finds rubbing "there" feels good.
Girl finds rubbing "there" also feels good.
One says to the other, "Hey, maybe it'll feel twice as good if we rub them together?"
A few rubs and an erection later.....slip, Oops!....oh wait, that feels good.

I also think that's how kissing was invented. A couple are happily grinding away, face inches away from each other it seems logical that lips would mash together at some point.

[Lobsang]

The one for me is scrambled eggs - how'd you figure out that beating eggs, adding milk and then burning it all makes the loveliest form of egg known to man?


Ever tried it with (real) butter, instead of milk?

[Illuminatiprimus]

Adding milk? Have I been doing it wrong this whole time?

Yes, your way lies heart attacks.

[Mangetout]

I can't believe this one didn't get answered.

Boy finds rubbing "there" feels good.
Girl finds rubbing "there" also feels good.
One says to the other, "Hey, maybe it'll feel twice as good if we rub them together?"
A few rubs and an erection later.....slip, Oops!....oh wait, that feels good.Is this a joke? Sex wasn't invented by humans.

[OtakuLoki]

Actually, isn't recreational sexual behavior, vice simple reproductive behavior, limited to just some of the so-called higher primates, and dolphins?

ISTM that there's a pretty big gap between the way the rest of the animal kingdom goes around dealing with reproduction, and the way that we do it.

[WhyNot]

Actually, isn't recreational sexual behavior, vice simple reproductive behavior, limited to just some of the so-called higher primates, and dolphins?

ISTM that there's a pretty big gap between the way the rest of the animal kingdom goes around dealing with reproduction, and the way that we do it.
I've heard it argued just the opposite - that since (as far as we know) no other animal understands the link between sex and reproduction, they're all just doin' it 'cause it feels good. It's all recreational sex when you're a titmouse. Only humans, so far as we know, sometimes have sex with the intention of reproducing!

[OtakuLoki]

WhyNot, but that seems to ignore that such creatures only have sex when the female is in estrus. (Or so I believe)

[WhyNot]

WhyNot, but that seems to ignore that such creatures only have sex when the female is in estrus. (Or so I believe)
I don't think that's always the case. Don't some animals (rabbits, I think?) ovulate as a result of having sex?

I'm not denying that "nature intends" most animals to have babies as a result of sex. As far as I know, only primates also use sex for forming or firming social bonds. But, from the animals' own point of view, they're doing the nasty 'cause it feels good - for recreation.

[OtakuLoki]

Oh, I agree, we're playing with definitions here. (You may be right about copulation triggering ovulation, but I can neither confirm, nor disprove it.) It's the same sort of debate as the chicken or egg debate, both sides will have some validity to their arguments, but not enough to win the thing - because the argument is really being perpetuated because generating proper definitions is so difficult.

It's just a view of natural history that I like to mention for its ability spark thought.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

To me, cassava does not seem like the kind of thing that would make it on the short list of things to export to other continents. But then, to me, things that you have to let rot in a puddle before you can eat it would not be on my short list of Tasty Things. And then I would have missed out, so there you go.
But cassava (yuca to me and my part of the world) is good. You can make all sorts of things out of yuca: fries, bread, empanadas, soup, arepitas, farofa, and pandebono, among others. Although, I do have to concede that it doesn't sound nearly as good when you make it into nshima.

Don't some animals (rabbits, I think?) ovulate as a result of having sex?Cats, definitely. That's why you can choose not to spay them and still not have to worry about them menstruating all over the house.

Dogs, not so much. We waited a little too long on the last one, and it was nice to clean up my dog's menstrual discharge for a while. :smack:

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Actually, isn't recreational sexual behavior, vice simple reproductive behavior, limited to just some of the so-called higher primates, and dolphins?When dogs are humping someone's leg, it sure seems recreational.

[Hostile Dialect]

"It feels good" is a little different when you're talking about basic survival instincts. Does sex feel good to a titmouse the way sex feels good to us, or the way drinking water and eating feels good to us? I sure as hell don't know! :smack:

[OtakuLoki]

When dogs are humping someone's leg, it sure seems recreational.


I'm not entirely sure, there. I think it can be part of dominance games, as well.