Okay, who managed to figure out which foods are and are not edible?

[thermodynamic]

I mean, certain plants are poisonous. Who figured it out, and how?

Certain animals we gobble up all the time, yet don't bother with others. Why? Horsemeat is inexpensive. What about kitties? Meat is meat, so what's the difference?

Why do people eat those round nodules of silica gel that have the phrase "do not eat" clearly written on the plastic wrapping?

Ditto for paste that the children will happily devour. I somehow realized, without tasting the stuff, that paste is gross. Pretty sticky too. What compels the children to eat the stuff?

Eating fish food. Tastes like paper, I personally don't see what the fish find so edible about it.

Bird seed, anyone? That's pretty boring as well.

Drinking glue? Well, I've actually never heard of that one, but I suspect somebody will do that just to get on "Jackass" in the near future. :eyes:

Caviar. That's my favorite. Somehow, for some reason, somebody woke up one morning and said "Hey ho! Today I'm going to collect and taste some fish eggs and them peddle them to the rich people to show how pompous and stupid they are! There are thousands of species of fish, so where shall I begin? Oops, I mustn't forget all the whale species as well, even though we've already endangered them thanks to our greed..." (Okay, I actually dig this guy, even though he was gross enough to try eating "unmade life" in an effort to embarrass the wealthy...)

We find lots of things gross, but then we start licking parts of other people; that makes no rational sense either. (You didn't expect to see that one coming, now did you? :evilgrin: )

[Um_Yeah]

1. About the glue thing

Who the hell figured out how to make it? Did someone just boil random horse parts and then try to make stuff stick to it?

[IDUDOYOU]

2. It was me

I figured everything out.
Hate to sound immodest, but when you are good you are good.
Next question?

[1monster]

3. I just wrote you both a very long post explaining just how it all was done

and then somehow, half of the little essay disappeared into cyberland before I hit "Post Message".

Well, I'm not gonna type it all over again. x( You're gonna have to do your own research on this one!

[ForrestGump]

4. Evidently not the English

To my English friends and relatives: I jest of course! Sort of. Almost. Hey, you guys should be used to this by now.

[alfredo]

5. It was the process of elimination

Someone eats the wrong thing, he is eliminated.

Thag eat red thing. thag died. Dhag not eat red thing. Dhag live.


My question is artichokes, who thought of eating them?

[opihimoimoi]

6. Famine will drive all of us to the Tasting Table

Body Parts R Us:

Turkey ass

chicken feet

liver

brains

intestines

urchin eggs

fish eggs

lutefisk

tofu

bitter melon

shark fins

gizzards

and blood.

[alfredo]

7. goat intestines are

tasty. I used to eat them all the time when living in Eritrea. Goat head soup was good if you didn't look at it.

Gizzards are good eat'n. The gizzard is just a muscle sac for grinding grain. The chicken will eat small stones for their gizzard. That is why chickens don't have teeth, they don't need them, they have a gizzard.

Even some dinosaurs had them.

I used to eat blood sausage all the time. It was good, but I liked liver sausage more.

Brains have too much cholesterol, but they were good with scrambled eggs.

Sheep and beef testicles are good, and so is beef tongue. Beef tongue on a Kaiser roll and a cup of coffee makes a good lunch.

We used to chew the resin from trees. Peach trees oozed quite a bit. It wasn't bad at all. If you let the resin sit for a few million years you have amber. the inner bark of the slippery elm was good for a sore throat and the inner bark of the willow is good for headaches.

The common weed, plaintain is good for poison ivy. Coleus will get you high.

[classics]

13. You should write a book.

Thats some amazing stuff.

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Ah, lutefisk! Another food wonder!

"Hey - although this fish is tasty as it is, I just wonder what if we nailed it to a board and then soaked it in lye for a couple days? Man, I bet that would be great! or at least different. Anyway, we should do that, and make it a tradition. We have to have something."

"Yeah, but lye smells like decaying human flesh."

"Oh, come on - it's for the country. Eat it."

[JohnKleeb]

8. thermody I agree about caviar

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. Those who didn't die

Sounds chillingly inhuman of me, but that's pretty much it - those who didn't die were able to say "Okay, don't eat that one."

Other cultures do eat horsemeat - there's no reason not to, for the US, but for some reason, in our culture, it's seen as rather odd. Same with dog eating, rat eating, and cat eating. They're all edible, but we don't.

I've long been fascinated with tapioca, and whoever had the never-give-up attitude of figuring out that, even though the plant is poisonous, there IS a way to prepare that it isn't. How many people died for that recipe? And what was so damn compelling in their situation that they were willing to keep at eating a poisonous plant, and not just going back to the wheat and other obviously edible items they had?

And coffee - "Okay, these beans are okay and everything, BUT - I'm just taking a guess here - I bet that, if we shelled them, roasted them over fire, ground them up, and then poured hot water over the grounds, it would make a tasty beverage!"

[CDY]

11. Cute!

I would love to have seen the first person who tried peyote.

As for licking other people's parts, I think we know if we do it we will get it in return! Whether you actually choose to digest what comes with it is a personal choice.

[Exultant Democracy]

12. Dude, you ate fish food?

To answer your question, humans are the most curious creatures on earth. Over the last 10 thousand year we have tried at least once to eat just about anything that can fit in our mouths. As for caviar, I have to admit with some shame that I like it, fish eggs is alright, but fish food, why man why?

[newyawker99]

17. Congrats LeviathanCrumbling!! 200 posts

:toast:

[FloridaJudy]

14. Wow, you mean I'm not the only one who wondered about this?

Manioc. Take manioc: the stuff is deadly poison (it's chock full of cyanide), unless it's beaten and then soaked in several changes of water for a long time. Then it turns into a calorie-rich - albeit bland - food-stuff, which many people in unindustrialized countries count on to sustain life. Who figured that out? I mean you can pretty much guess how people found out which mushrooms and berries were safe to eat (the folks who ate the dangerous ones died) but manioc?

And fugu. Whoever figured out that if you removed the skin, gallbladder, gonads, and intestines from a puffer-fish you could make it into tasty sushi, instead of instant death?

I still wonder about this.

[newyawker99]

18. Hi FloridaJudy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[trof]

15. The first guy to eat an oyster

I theorize that he saw a sea gull drop one on a rock and then swoop down to peck out the innards. Still, he had to be pretty brave or pretty hungry.

Sea gulls will eat anything. I saw one standing on a plastic Wal-Mart bag, pecking off pieces and eating them. Maybe there was some kind of food residue on the bag?

[2cents]

16. Who discovered which plants were poisonous?

Curious cavewives, trying out new sh*t on their unsuspecting mates.

May explain why, to this day, we have an aversion to salads.