how did they find that out

the_pen_turner

i ha a discution with a friend aboutstuff that would be really odd to find out


some milder ones
milk, who thought to drink that from an animal
eggs , same



to more wierd ones
those coffee beans that are eaten by a goat and collected from the dung and made into coffee



how did they find this out

what other things do you wonder about like this

FortySeven

Who first had the idea to roll a dried tobacco leaf, light it and smoke it?

I suppose, if you didn't have boards.....

Mr. FoggPatches

How do you find out you can ski jump has always been a burning topic around these parts

In ancient times, they would take an animal, kill it, and eat every part.

What would be so unusual about someone trying the milk, or once they figured out fire, how to use it to cook the eggs previously eaten raw.

How long did that conversation last? Did it break up with no conclusions? That's what I'd like to find out.

FortySeven

Whoever first milked a soy. For the life of me I can't find the teat....

Arghus

Think about the stuff they had to drink that didn't work before they hit upon the right idea.

endacl

Soufflé?

RobertKK

the_pen_turner wrote: »

i ha a discution with a friend aboutstuff that would be really odd to find out


some milder ones
milk, who thought to drink that from an animal
eggs , same



to more wierd ones
those coffee beans that are eaten by a goat and collected from the dung and made into coffee



how did they find this out

what other things do you wonder about like this

People didn't have supermarkets and food was not plentiful like today.

Humans use to be all lactose intolerant after the first few years of life, but a gene mutation happened a few thousand years back in central Europe that allowed humans to drink milk for life rather than when only a baby/toddler.

Austria!

the_pen_turner wrote: »

milk, who thought to drink that from an animal

Calves

Grayson

FortySeven wrote: »

Who first had the idea to roll a dried tobacco leaf, light it and smoke it?

I suppose, if you didn't have boards.....

Coal as well. Who thought throwing rocks on the fire was good?

eet fuk

Honey. Like they just said fúck it I wanna see what these bastards are hiding

Cortina_MK_IV

A lot of it must have been accidental, just stumble across it. Not that far back but like Viagra, wasn't it heart medicine.

eet fuk

Cortina_MK_IV wrote: »

A lot of it must have been accidental, just stumble across it. Not that far back but like Viagra, wasn't it heart medicine.

Nah that stuff comes out the ground like spuds. Known to the Mayans for centuries

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

eet fuk wrote: »

Nah that stuff comes out the ground like spuds. Known to the Mayans for centuries

Spuds is another one, them feckers will kill you raw. Was everyone just so excited when they found out about cooking that they went 'f*ck it let's try this on everything, even the poisonous stuff. Especially the poisonous stuff! There are no bad ideas in brainstorming!'

FortySeven

Imagine how many of our ancestors gave their lives discovering our culinary delights?

Ug and Og we salute you!

Orion

the_pen_turner wrote: »

i ha a discution with a friend aboutstuff that would be really odd to find out


some milder ones
milk, who thought to drink that from an animal
eggs , same



to more wierd ones
those coffee beans that are eaten by a goat and collected from the dung and made into coffee



how did they find this out

what other things do you wonder about like this

Milk - obvious. Kids drink milk from their mother. So do cows/goats/sheep. Easy to work that out out.
Eggs - other animals will eat hen's eggs if allowed. So they were tried and goddamn tasty.

Coffee is crap whether in goat crap or not so dunno about that one.

Orion

RobertKK wrote: »

People didn't have supermarkets and food was not plentiful like today.

Humans use to be all lactose intolerant after the first few years of life, but a gene mutation happened a few thousand years back in central Europe that allowed humans to drink milk for life rather than when only a baby/toddler.

Actually most mammals including humans are lactose intolerant. Pasteurisation kills the good bacteria that breaks down lactose. All mammals can drink raw milk because of the L. Casei bacteria. Sound familiar? That's because of Actimel seemingly inventing the bacteria that is naturally occurring in milk and putting in their yoghurts.

Edups2.0

Orion wrote: »

Actually most mammals including humans are lactose intolerant. Pasteurisation kills the good bacteria that breaks down lactose. All mammals can drink raw milk because of the L. Casei bacteria. Sound familiar? That's because of Aptimel seemingly inventing the bacteria that is naturally occurring in milk and putting in their yoghurts.

Isn't aptimil baby formula

Orion

Edups2.0 wrote: »

Isn't aptimil baby formula

Actimel I meant.

pablo128

The fella that discovered how to make Ecstasy tablets deserves a medal.

ChunkyLover54

pablo128 wrote: »

The fella that discovered how to make Ecstasy tablets deserves a medal.

The Nobel E's Prize.

FortySeven

pablo128 wrote: »

The fella that discovered how to make Ecstasy tablets deserves a medal.

He lived in California, sunny all day. He had one of the finest women I've ever seen and a limitless supply of pills.

He diidnt need any medal!

padd b1975

Musical instruments.

NiallBoo

Cortina_MK_IV wrote: »

A lot of it must have been accidental, just stumble across it. Not that far back but like Viagra, wasn't it heart medicine.

The story goes that when it went to human trials (as a heart treatment), the subjects kept coming back saying "this is great stuff altogether, can I have some more?"
...then eventually someone asked them what was so great about it.

Robsweezie

how did they change so quickly in stars in their eyes?

whiskeyman

Always amazed that weird is spelt wrong by so many...


:pac:

R P McMurphy

Cortina_MK_IV wrote: »

A lot of it must have been accidental, just stumble across it. Not that far back but like Viagra, wasn't it heart medicine.

It still is used for that purpose. Especially common for premature babies

exaisle

whiskeyman wrote: »

Always amazed that weird is spelt wrong by so many...


:pac:

I'm amazed how many people wrongly use an adjective when an adverb is needed...

Badly Drunk Boy

whiskeyman wrote: »

Always amazed that weird is spelt wrong by so many...


:pac:

I think a lot of them are totally wired!

exaisle wrote: »

I'm amazed how many people wrongly use an adjective when an adverb is needed...

'Wrong' can be used as an adjective and an adverb (and a verb and a noun).

HellSquirrel

Milk and eggs seem reasonably straight-forward, although there's a fun legend about the potato (well, probably not fun for the people involved, assuming it's true).

But the story is that Raleigh brought potatoes back to Europe and introduced them as a novelty. At a fancy party in ...presumably the Spanish, but possibly English, court, the potatoes were proudly cooked as a delicacy from a distant land.

Problem was that they weren't used to tubers and instead of cooking the ugly, bulbous bits, they cooked the leaves. The really nastily poisonous bit. After the vomit had been cleaned up and many, many apologies had taken place, potatoes were quietly sidelined for a good while until someone dared have another shot at them.

I don't know if it's true, but I want it to be true

donegaLroad

HellSquirrel wrote: »

Milk and eggs seem reasonably straight-forward, although there's a fun legend about the potato (well, probably not fun for the people involved, assuming it's true).

But the story is that Raleigh brought potatoes back to Europe and introduced them as a novelty. At a fancy party in ...presumably the Spanish, but possibly English, court, the potatoes were proudly cooked as a delicacy from a distant land.

Problem was that they weren't used to tubers and instead of cooking the ugly, bulbous bits, they cooked the leaves. The really nastily poisonous bit. After the vomit had been cleaned up and many, many apologies had taken place, potatoes were quietly sidelined for a good while until someone dared have another shot at them.

I don't know if it's true, but I want it to be true

I heard a story that Sir Walter Raleigh saw how smaller in stature the south Americas and brought the potatoe back to Europe to use as a weapon against the Irish. Spuds have a high glycemic index, so they are ok for a quick boost of carbs. The Irish diet previous to this was mainly oats which is an infinately better food, but the potatoes were introduced to weaken the Paddy.

M5

Crop/hunting failure, months of starvation...

Not really that much of a quantum leap in that scenario!

ScumLord

Humanity's love of drugs may have played a role in finding some of the stranger foods. The lengths some modern tribes in south America go to to get high shows they must have at some point tried processing just about every plant and animal they could find. Once cooking became a thing they obviously did a lot of experimentation.

Anyone that's tried starving would know that you'll eat just about anything when you're hungry too.

eet fuk

ScumLord wrote: »

Anyone that's tried starving would know that you'll eat just about anything when you're hungry too.

Not coriander though, that shít is mank

Cortina_MK_IV

HellSquirrel wrote: »

<snip> But the story is that Raleigh brought potatoes back to Europe and introduced them as a novelty.

Then they made the Chopper. :pac:

ScumLord

eet fuk wrote: »

Not coriander though, that shít is mank

I bet you my best stone axe you wouldn't eat ten of them.. Is another way it could happen.

HellSquirrel

ScumLord wrote: »

I bet you my best stone axe you wouldn't eat ten of them.. Is another way it could happen.

A tradition that continues proudly to this day and has lead to the discovery that Haribo Sugar-Free Gummi-Bears are in fact, not edible.

CINCLANTFLT

Milk and eggs I can understand, but what about cheese or yogurt... you process milk in such a way that it seems to go off but after another step or two you get something tasty... that must have taken a lot of experimentation...

jmayo

the_pen_turner wrote: »

i ha a discution with a friend aboutstuff that would be really odd to find out



to more wierd ones
those coffee beans that are eaten by a goat and collected from the dung and made into coffee

I don't know about the goats, but there is Kopi luwak coffee which is beans crapped out by Asian palm civets in Indonesia.
The Vietnamese labelled weasel coffee.

And then there is the Black Ivory coffee from Thailand produced by siphoning through elephant sh*t.

These ones do get me wondering.
Who thought it was a good idea to root through animal shyte and take the beans out and try them.

This got me thinking has anyone in Ireland tried anything similar.
Only thing I can think that goes in one end and comes out the other basically the same is sweetcorn.
Or this that only with humans.

ScumLord

jmayo wrote: »

I don't know about the goats, but there is Kopi luwak coffee which is beans crapped out by Asian palm civets in Indonesia.
The Vietnamese labelled weasel coffee.

And then there is the Black Ivory coffee from Thailand produced by siphoning through elephant sh*t.

These ones do get me wondering.

Cow dung has had many uses in the past. In India they turn it into "medicine" (it's not medicine). Cattle have been given god status in many ancient cultures, so it may not have been that someone thought it would add to the flavour but that maybe they would be absorbing some of the animals prowess by using stuff from their feces.

Neyite

CINCLANTFLT wrote: »

Milk and eggs I can understand, but what about cheese or yogurt... you process milk in such a way that it seems to go off but after another step or two you get something tasty... that must have taken a lot of experimentation...

Kill suckling calf. Open stomach to see solidified milk (cheese) Give some to the village asshole for a laugh but he likes it so someone else tries it and they like it too. Pretty soon it becomes a delicacy but killing a calf is an expensive way to get cheese so they experiment with stomachs until they figure out how to do it without killing the calf.

Not sure about yoghurt though.

BetsyEllen

It's not really rocket science.

I would imagine that somebody observed a calf drinking from its Mother and saw it was thriving on just her milk, just as humans would from their Mothers.
If there was a lack of food, they may have decided to milk the cow and give it a go.

Eggs; plenty of animals eat eggs, again it would only take somebody to observe this and realise that the egg is edible and obviously full of goodness.

Cortina_MK_IV

Origins of alcohol always fascinated me. Grapes, grain and someone somewhere got totally Oliver Twist and had that eureka moment and wine and whiskey* were born.

*Then we get stared on Irish or Scotch came first?

murpho999

Always thought the first man to open an oyster and eat it was a brave one. Glad he did though!

razorblunt

How?

Many bothans died to bring us this information.

ScumLord

Cortina_MK_IV wrote: »

Origins of alcohol always fascinated me. Grapes, grain and someone somewhere got totally Oliver Twist and had that eureka moment and wine and whiskey* were born.

*Then we get stared on Irish or Scotch came first?

Using Alcohol may predate our ability to produce it. There are fruits in Africa that naturally ferment. Many animals travel to eat these fruits and get hammered. It's a real problem when the elephants turn up, you don't want to be anywhere near a drunk elephant.

Vojera

CINCLANTFLT wrote: »

Milk and eggs I can understand, but what about cheese or yogurt... you process milk in such a way that it seems to go off but after another step or two you get something tasty... that must have taken a lot of experimentation...

The scenario we were told in school is that cheese was likely discovered by someone using an animal's stomach as a drinking bladder (as the would have back in the day). Hoping to have a drink of milk, they'd have opened it to discover that the milk had reacted with the rennet in the stomach to form a cheese-like substance. And once they worked it out, they'd have experimented and refined the process.

Wibbs

donegaLroad wrote: »

The Irish diet previous to this was mainly oats which is an infinately better food, but the potatoes were introduced to weaken the Paddy.

Funny enough the Irish peasantry after years of eating spuds were widely regarded and noted at the time as among the most vigorous in Europe and in better shape than their grain eating like in the rest of europe. Might make sense given that we've been eating tubers of various kinds as a species(and as previous humans) for hundreds of thousands of years.

Coming up with making and controlling fire is an impressive feat and one of our major killer apps. Animals are scared stiff of it, yet one/a few of our early ancestors had a lightbulb moment and approached it and started to use it. Initially as keeping accidental fires going(lightning strikes and the like), only later working out how to make it from scratch. Indeed there are still cultures today that don't or didn't know how to actually make fire, instead they stored it as smouldering embers from existing fires. Crazy to think that a Neandertal could have shown modern people like you and me how to make it. After fire comes cooking, one of our biggest killer apps of all. It physically changed our very bodies.

Needles and thread another amazing idea. Only us modern humans seemed to have cracked that one.

ScumLord

Wibbs wrote: »

Initially as keeping accidental fires going(lightning strikes and the like), only later working out how to make it from scratch.

It's crazy they used to carry fire around with them in pouches. From our perspective knowing how easy it can be to make fire it's madness they probably spent millennia going to such lengths to protect embers of fires that may have started generations ago. Even after we know how to start fires it seems that the tradition of keeping a fire going becomes a matter of pride for cultures as late and sophisticated as the Romans.

razorblunt

"See that wolf over there? I'm going to make him my best friend and call him Fido, but if he pisses in my house he's out".

Ergo, dogs.

ScumLord

razorblunt wrote: »

"See that wolf over there? I'm going to make him my best friend and call him Fido, but if he pisses in my house he's out".

Ergo, dogs.

It was more likely the other way around.

"See that human over there, I'm going to make him my best friend, by the end of the day he'll be giving me his food and rubbing my belly".