# List of Preserved Foods with an Ancient Origin **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 22, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286 "2020-05-22T14:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [May 22, 2020, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/41 "2020-05-22T22:19:05Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > There’s a question that has always fascinated me - how in the world did people 7000 years ago reach the level of knowledge to render olives edible? > > “OK, Phil. These olives are way too bitter to eat, so let’s soak them for a couple of days in water that’s been strained through our campfire ashes. Then we’ll toss them into a bucket of sea water and leave them for a year or two. Then we’ll have something to put in our martinis!” > [@Icarus](#): > > Oy, 'dey watched the birdies do it. 'Dat’s how a lot of foods be discovered, init? Despite the common advice, eating what birds eat is not necessarily a good guide to what’s edible to humans. For one thing, birds pass toxic seeds through their digestive tracts without digesting them, whereas humans can break them down and have problems. In the case of olives, birds don’t care about the bitterness of the fruit since they swallow it whole. Apparently olives were first cultivated for their oil. [It was the Romans who discovered how to treat them with lye to make them edible.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2016/07/olives--the-bitter-truth/) ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/42 "2020-05-22T22:22:09Z")
Egyptians knew about how to mummify folks. I think they might have been able to preserve a hunk of camel meat. I also think ancient humanoids ate a lot of rotten stuff and bad berries and fungi. Belly ache meant: don’t do that again. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/43 "2020-05-22T22:38:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > For that matter, Ship’s Biscuit also keeps forever, if you keep it dry. It was basically flour and water, mixed to a paste (with little water in it) and baked. The result was hard as a rock, but woulkd keep without preservatives. They must have had stuff like this in the ancient world – when Ernest by Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper were making the film _Grass_ in Afghanistan in the 1920s (well over a decade before they made _King Kong_), they followed the nomadic herdsmen who themselves followed the grass that kept their herds alive (hence the film’s title). Their financial backer, a woman whose name I can’t recall, reportedly broke a tooth on the nomads’ rock-hard bread, which must have been a cousin to ship’s biscuit. You can still get it. [https://purity.nf.ca/products/](https://purity.nf.ca/products/) And you can still break a tooth on it. I know this for a fact. :mad: ---
**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:** [May 22, 2020, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/44 "2020-05-22T22:44:39Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Egyptians knew about how to mummify folks. I think they might have been able to preserve a hunk of camel meat. The Egyptians preserved mummies with [natron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natron) and resin. Meat preserved according to the mummification process would taste pretty much like pine-tar soap. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/45 "2020-05-22T23:08:28Z")
So, better than lutefisk. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/46 "2020-05-22T23:25:27Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > There’s a question that has always fascinated me - how in the world did people 7000 years ago reach the level of knowledge to render olives edible? > > “OK, Phil. These olives are way too bitter to eat, so let’s soak them for a couple of days in water that’s been strained through our campfire ashes. Then we’ll toss them into a bucket of sea water and leave them for a year or two. Then we’ll have something to put in our martinis!” Coffee! Who in the Hell harvested the beans, roasted them, then brewed them in hot water? I mean, I’m GRATEFUL, but still… And what about artichokes? ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/47 "2020-05-22T23:34:10Z")
I often think how could anyone look at a lobster and say “Yummy, good eats!” ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/48 "2020-05-22T23:36:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The Egyptians preserved mummies with [natron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natron) and resin. Meat preserved according to the mummification process would taste pretty much like pine-tar soap. 🙂 I was hoping they used a slightly different recipe. Maybe rosemary and pine-nuts? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/49 "2020-05-22T23:37:12Z")
George Carlin probably had it right when he speculated that shepherds probably watched goats eat the beans then party all night. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2020, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/50 "2020-05-22T23:54:34Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > George Carlin probably had it right when he speculated that shepherds probably watched goats eat the beans then party all night. There are several legends about the discovery of the invigorating qualities of coffee, one of the most popular being that of the [goatherd Kaldi.](https://www.compatible-capsules.com/coffee-culture/discovery-of-coffee-legend-of-kaldi/) He found his goats dancing about after eating the coffee berries and then tried them himself. Other legends involve a Sufi monk noticing that birds became more agitated after eating the seeds. But coffee was apparently first used by Sufi monks trying to stay awake during their devotions. > [@VOW](#): > > Coffee! Who in the Hell harvested the beans, roasted them, then brewed them in hot water? Coffee was originally prepared by boiling the skin and pulp of the fruit, or by boiling the green seed. It was brewed as a stimulant rather than for its flavor. It was discovered much later that roasting the seeds improved the flavor, and grinding them improved extraction of the caffeine and flavor compounds. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/51 "2020-05-23T00:00:31Z")
Then Starbucks discovered that you could sell substandard, over-roasted crap to _anybody_ if you raised your prices to something ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/52 "2020-05-23T13:08:12Z")
Cheese and beer were very important products in the Neolithic. I’ve heard it claimed — only half joking? — that the hunter-gatherers of northern Germany and Denmark adopted farming circa 4000 BC only after learning the recipe for beer! > [@Ynnad](#): > > … How do you properly punctuate a sentence which is a question that ends with a quote that is also a question[?] I hoped to read answers to this interesting question. I’d use two question marks myself, but that’s my persnicketiness. ---
**Author:** ![Ynnad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4491bb/32.png) [@Ynnad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ynnad)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/53 "2020-05-23T16:45:14Z")
> [@Ynnad](#): > > (Another question occurred to me as I was typing this post. How do you properly punctuate a sentence which is a question that ends with a quote that is also a question. Did I do it right? This question probably belongs in a different forum.) Is asking a question about question marks and forgetting to end it with a question mark an example of Muphry’s Law? Or is it more like Umhoefer’s Law, Hartman’s Law, or some other law? ---
**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:** [May 23, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/54 "2020-05-23T22:20:04Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Coffee was originally prepared by boiling the skin and pulp of the fruit, or by boiling the green seed. Incidentally, coffee [“cherries”](https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/coffee-cherries-on-tree-260nw-1070612768.jpg) are edible and somewhat sweet. The pulp and skin contains a small amount of caffeine. Primitive people were in the habit of brewing up infusions of all kinds of plants, so it’s not surprising they might boil up dried coffee cherries. Even today, the dried pulp is made into tea. So all it takes is just leaving some seeds in with the pulp to get a drink with some kick. ---
**Author:** ![TheNewDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@TheNewDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNewDude)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286/55 "2020-05-25T00:34:01Z")
> **[Uncooked Country Ham In Cloth Sack](https://www.smithfieldmarketplace.com/product/uncooked-country-ham/best-sellers)** > > Salt Cured Aged & Smoked Uncooked SliceThin! Our mild cure country ham is smoked and coated with black pepper. Surface mold is also common and is in no way injurious (like fine cheeses mold in the aging process). Preparation instructions... These will keep forever. Virginia or Kentucky Country Ham [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-of-preserved-foods-with-an-ancient-origin/854286.md?page=2)