Do you ever wonder?

[Twodogs]

I was thinking about garlic and how yummy it tasted but how disgusting it smelled.

Who was the brave soul that decided to chuck it in the cooking pot first? I wonder what his mates thought?


Then there's wheat and the complicated process of making it into bread. How did they work out that if you crush wheat and extract the flour from inside then you can mix it with water and make bread? It's just such an abstract and unlikely thing to happen.

[Murphy'sLore]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

What about coffee? How complicated is that process? Picking, drying, roasting, grinding, filtering... it's absurd.

Even frying up a potato chip isn't exactly intuitive!

[Mofra]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Our ancestors used to look for ways to preserve food, and cottoned on pretty quickly that dry food lasted longer. That is why salt is so common, but also determined that certain grains (including wheat) would be ground - a useable food source for lean times.
Salting fish enabled seaborne exploration in pre-middle ages Europe which enabled the spread of trade, enabled technology sharing and is basically why Europe & European colonies rule the world today.

They do say the first person to ever eat an oyster was a brave soul indeed.
I'd be more interested in the first person who worked out a small sliver of flesh on the side of puffer fish was not poisenous to humans.

[mighty_west]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Our ancestors used to look for ways to preserve food, and cottoned on pretty quickly that dry food lasted longer. That is why salt is so common, but also determined that certain grains (including wheat) would be ground - a useable food source for lean times.
Salting fish enabled seaborne exploration in pre-middle ages Europe which enabled the spread of trade, enabled technology sharing and is basically why Europe & European colonies rule the world today.

They do say the first person to ever eat an oyster was a brave soul indeed.
I'd be more interested in the first person who worked out a small sliver of flesh on the side of puffer fish was not poisenous to humans.

Perhaps there was a use for slaves back in the dark ages or TB sufferers in over crowded hospitals.

[EasternWest]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Our ancestors used to look for ways to preserve food, and cottoned on pretty quickly that dry food lasted longer. That is why salt is so common, but also determined that certain grains (including wheat) would be ground - a useable food source for lean times.
Salting fish enabled seaborne exploration in pre-middle ages Europe which enabled the spread of trade, enabled technology sharing and is basically why Europe & European colonies rule the world today.

They do say the first person to ever eat an oyster was a brave soul indeed.
I'd be more interested in the first person who worked out a small sliver of flesh on the side of puffer fish was not poisenous to humans.

Fantastic thread and an interesting response Mofra.

I just want to know if Greedo or Han shot first. It's a topic of some conjecture.

[The Pie Man]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Can't remember who the comedian was but I do vaguely remember a gag about who was first to discover milk and how weird that must have been

[LostDoggy]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Han shot first. But he would, he's a bastard pirate. The heart of gold stuff came later with Leia (and was retconned into all his sissy novelisations).

Anyway, I am very much into epistemological musings having taught philosophy at postgraduate level for a while, and the evolution of social norms is a vaguely related subject that I've thought and read a lot about -- there isn't any one answer to how things come about, of course, but a lot of the stuff we have today is a process of repeated iterations over time, and the versions we have today are just the latest iteration, and a lot of them happen to be pretty standardised/perfect looking because of modern processing technology rather than any magical reason -- garden grown garlic looks/tastes/smells quite different from the mass-grown stuff we get from China. And if you know cooking, you'll know that there have always been people experimenting, growing, testing, tasting, changing stuff.. people experiment with things far more disgusting than garlic in the kitchen every day in search for the next new taste, and I think that's where the answer lies -- in natural human curiosity and a search for improvement and new experiences. The Wright brothers only invented the aeroplane after lots of other people killed themselves trying, and for a species that discovered something as esoteric as the general and specific theories of relativity and built the Large Haldron Collider, discovering something like garlic doesn't seem so unbelievable.

There's also a theory around the diffusion of ideas (if anyone's read Bourdieu, or writings around the idea of intellectual/social/cultural capital) that suggests that most progress is originally made by a few people working hard at improving things and you only hear of their successes permeating through to the rest of society, while the failures generally don't make it out of the lab or the kitchen (except in historical research). The use of garlic as a cooking ingredient spread because it was an idea that worked and transferred from person to person until it became a norm (in certain cultures). The use of skunkweed as an ingredient, on the other hand, is an example of an idea that never gained widespread acceptance in practice.

Also, don't discount the well-known truism that 'necessity is the mother of invention'. There is a line of thought looking at culinary variety in cultures that suggests that those that have gone through events such as widespread famine etc. become a lot more creative in their use of ingredients -- the Chinese using every part of the animal, for example. Finally, cultural osmosis is also a great boost for originality and creativity -- the greatest variety of cuisine is always most apparent along old trading routes, where cultures mingled and new flavours were born (thus Melbourne's relative multi-culturalism a big factor in explaining our culinary trappings). Scarcity also breeds preciousness, and spice was traded as luxury items in days not too long past (as intimated by Mofra in a previous post).

ps. also, if you've travelled a bit you know how much variation there is between things that we call by the same name -- coffee is only one example.. in some places it's barely even recognisable as what we drink here in Melbourne, and a lot of growers/distributors who cater to the international market specifically process and package the stuff for specific local markets (ie. to 'Australian' tastes etc.)

pps. To answer the OP specifically, garlic was originally used a medicine, I believe.

[Mofra]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Anyway, I am very much into epistemological musings having taught philosophy at postgraduate level for a while, and the evolution of social norms is a vaguely related subject that I've thought and read a lot about -- there isn't any one answer to how things come about, of course, but a lot of the stuff we have today is a process of repeated iterations over time, and the versions we have today are just the latest iteration, and a lot of them happen to be pretty standardised/perfect looking because of modern processing technology rather than any magical reason

Very interesting, and it does beg the question of how different common items today will seem in 10-20 years time. I did read one article by a professional futurist (yes, they exist) who argued that a full50% of jobs in Australian society in 2050 have not been invented yet. Staggering number if even close to true.

garden grown garlic looks/tastes/smells quite different from the mass-grown stuff we get from China. And if you know cooking, you'll know that there have always been people experimenting, growing, testing, tasting, changing stuff.. people experiment with things far more disgusting than garlic in the kitchen every day in search for the next new taste, and I think that's where the answer lies -- in natural human curiosity and a search for improvement and new experiences. The Wright brothers only invented the aeroplane after lots of other people killed themselves trying

Australian garlic is purplish & is much stronger, I prefer it.
The Wright brothers were just following in the footsteps of Richard Pearse:

http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html

On a slightly diffrent tack, the history of domestication is an interesting topic for those who ever wondered why we eat what we do today. Wild corn was the size of the average human thumb pre-domestication.

[Sedat]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

I was thinking about garlic and how yummy it tasted but how disgusting it smelled.

Who was the brave soul that decided to chuck it in the cooking pot first? I wonder what his mates thought?

I'm tipping it was someone from the Mediterranean that did so first - I had no choice but to love garlic seeing as apparently it was mashed up in my vegies from when I first started eating solids. True to form, my kids have all had lashings of garlic mashed into their vegies from about 5 months of age onwards.

[ledge]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

I want to know who saw an egg come out of a chooks bum and said "mmm i might eat that!"

[Daughter of the West]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Latern, that post was awesome!

It's thoughts like that that concern me that my brain is turning to mush, but on the flip side, reignite my hunger to read and learn more about the world (I've just finished post-graduate studies a year or so a go, so my brain is starting to get a little stagnant).

Mofra - did you hear the futurists' report on Triple J's Hack program yesterday? The talk of "regular" face to face position such as receptionist and personal carers being the domain of intelligent robots in the future freaked me out somewhat. I can't fathom something like that ever happening, but by the same token, I'll bet my grandmother could never fathom something like an iPhone.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Smoking tabacco.

Who would of though that drying a leaf and smoking it would be so world wide!!

Get some smoke into ya!!!!!!!

[LostDoggy]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

The Asian Garlic or the crushed garlic you buy added to food is the problem . You'll find that the local fresh stuff is 10x better and doesn't reek as much.

[AndrewP6]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Can't remember who the comedian was but I do vaguely remember a gag about who was first to discover milk and how weird that must have been

I've heard it too. Something along the lines of "What the hell was he doing with the cow?"

Maybe the answer is here

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-guy-who-discovered-milkWhat-was-he-doing-with-that-cow/175179697324?v=wall

[AndrewP6]

Re: Do you ever wonder?

Caviar? What sicko was feeling a bit peckish and thought "Gee I'd really like to down some unborn fish"