# I think if trapped in the past I'd go insane over food. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949 "2014-10-10T10:13:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/1 "2014-10-10T10:13:17Z")
I really do think that would be the worst thing about being trapped in the past, imagining the look on the face of a grocery clerk while I ask where the feta cheese or sushi bar is. Hell even finding the ingredients to make it yourself would be difficult or impossible, not even an internet to do so. Forget Mexican food, if you want to go out for some exotic ethnic food there is this new Italian place that just opened that serves what tastes like canned Chef Boyardee spaghetti. The owner probably wouldn’t even know what cannoli is. Seriously I’d probably lose my mind. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/2 "2014-10-10T10:45:24Z")
ok. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/3 "2014-10-10T11:15:05Z")
not only that, most fruit and vegetables have only been domesticated in the past 1000 or 500 years… food used to be quite boring ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/4 "2014-10-10T13:13:31Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I really do think that would be the worst thing about being trapped in the past, imagining the look on the face of a grocery clerk while I ask where the feta cheese or sushi bar is. Hell even finding the ingredients to make it yourself would be difficult or impossible, not even an internet to do so. > > Forget Mexican food, if you want to go out for some exotic ethnic food there is this new Italian place that just opened that serves what tastes like canned Chef Boyardee spaghetti. The owner probably wouldn’t even know what cannoli is. > > Seriously I’d probably lose my mind. How far in the past? Because it was only about a hundred years ago that Pure Food laws were implemented in the US. A little earlier than that and the “butter” you bought at a store was likely to be lard with sulfur added to give it a yellow color. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/5 "2014-10-10T13:56:01Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > …food used to be quite boring …and people used to be much slimmer. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/6 "2014-10-10T14:54:02Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > not only that, most fruit and vegetables have only been domesticated in the past 1000 or 500 years… food used to be quite boring Not true. However, they have become globally available only in the past 500 years or so. Before 1492 there were no potatoes in Ireland or tomatoes in Italy or chili peppers in India. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/7 "2014-10-10T15:00:48Z")
Define the past, because what you typed sounds pretty much like my childhood. The grocery stores stocked basic foods and spices in the medium-sized city where I grew up. I don’t recall any ethnic restaurants at all. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/8 "2014-10-10T15:26:39Z")
I think ethnic restaurants in the past were operated by people of that ethnicity and the food would have been good, except sometimes limited by available ingredients. The variety of restaurants may not have been available outside of major metropolitan areas, but I’ve never seen any reason to believe the quality was lacking. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/9 "2014-10-10T15:34:28Z")
I’m remind of a panel in the Larry Gonick series _The Cartoon History of the Universe_\*, where he’s looking at people in ancient Sumeria. The caption says that they lived on a diet of bread an onions. “Don’t you get tired of Bread and Onions?” asks the man, eating Bread an Onions. “Tired of FOOD??!” asks the woman Your problem is that you know about alternatives. Actually, Sumerians almost certainly are more than just bread and onions. Most people eat some sort of meat (even if they say they don’t, and excuse any meat put into the “sauce” sopped up by their bread as only “flavoring”). I think a diet of bread and onions is pretty deficient, and they must have supplemented it with something else. So there’d be variety, but probably not with the things you know and love. I’d have problem with food, too, but mainly because of food storage. Things tend to go bad, and we’ve grown used to both additives and preservation methods – freezing, freeze drying, canning with pressure-cooker sterilization – which wouldn’t be available if you go some distance into the past. Even storing things in colo chambers, you’d get milk, butter, and other things going rancid quickly. (One scene from fiction that stands out in my memory is in Frans Bengtsson’s _The Long Ships/Red Orm_ where they praise a new Viking because he doesn’t have any qualms about eating the moldy, decaying hunk of meat they’re storing belowdecks.) Better get used to a lot of smoked and salted meat, and eating cheese. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/10 "2014-10-10T16:26:09Z")
That’s funny. I’m trapped in the present, and I would be going insane over food, if I didn’t have a way to cook virtually everything from scratch in my kitchen. Just a few shelves in the supermarket of anything that I can actually eat. No way I could ever depend on “eating out” for sustenance. ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/11 "2014-10-10T16:41:37Z")
When I read the subject line I immediately thought of old sailing ships and having to eat biscuits filled with maggots and weevils. That’s the only food situation I can think of that would drive me insane. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/12 "2014-10-10T17:15:05Z")
> [@CheshireKat](#): > > When I read the subject line I immediately thought of old sailing ships and having to eat biscuits filled with maggots and weevils. That’s the only food situation I can think of that would drive me insane. But the weevils are the best part! Protein, without all that preserving salt. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/13 "2014-10-10T18:26:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But the weevils are the best part! > > Protein, without all that preserving salt. Still, if you had to choose between a large weevil and a small weevil, I think you’d choose the lesser of the two weevils. ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/14 "2014-10-10T18:30:38Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Still, if you had to choose between a large weevil and a small weevil, I think you’d choose the lesser of the two weevils. This made maggot clench. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/15 "2014-10-10T20:16:56Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Still, if you had to choose between a large weevil and a small weevil, I think you’d choose the lesser of the two weevils. You’re fired. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/16 "2014-10-10T20:36:16Z")
You would be eating a great deal of local plants and roots that we no longer eat or are now obscure because of the availability of the OmniFoods. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/17 "2014-10-10T20:47:05Z")
I’d be shooting one of the six deer that are casually traipsing across my lawn, stealing pears from off my trees. Mmm. Nice pear-fattened venison. With pear sauce. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/18 "2014-10-10T20:59:06Z")
I don’t know… On the one hand it’s true that our access to ethnic foods would be enormously decreased. Seasonal foods would actually be seasonal. We’d certainly lose out on some variety there. Making food took a lot more time, and you used a lot more of your money on it. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for an era in which tomatoes tasted like tomatoes and bread couldn’t sit in a plastic bag for a month. Eating locally and seasonally is not a bad thing. Game meats and organ meats are highly under-appreciated by modern palates. If you had enough money that surviving the winter wasn’t a big concern, there was some really good eats to be had back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/19 "2014-10-10T22:45:07Z")
I think for people on the bottom of the totem pole (think “not a member of the one percent”) food was very limited in supply and very plain. I think millet, whatever it was, used to be the major grain in Europe. Most people lived on gruels, grains of various sort (wheat, millet, corn, etc.) mixed with water. Prior to the Irish potato famine the big staple in Ireland was potatoes mashed up in milk. It would have been very boring, but you would probably have spent a lot of your waking hours doing hard physical labor and hence would have been very hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949/20 "2014-10-10T22:47:08Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > You would be eating a great deal of local plants and roots that we no longer eat or are now obscure because of the availability of the OmniFoods. Yep. Some of the foods my late mother-in-law grew up eating - pokeweed, acorns, squirrel, rattlesnake - have been supplanted by domesticated items that don’t require nearly as much effort or prep time to make edible. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-if-trapped-in-the-past-id-go-insane-over-food/700949.md?page=2)