Posted on 03/15/2004 5:41:55 PM PST by blam
What a coincidence...so do I.
It's a small world, I tell ya.
I mean, who was the first human to say "Gee, I wonder if a palatable drink would result if we were to take a bunch of grapes, stomp on them for a while, filter out the stems, and store the liquid in bottles for a year or so?"
Or how about butter? What insane person came up with the idea to take cream from a cow, make it sour, and then churn it up until it turned into something solid?
I wonder how many other great foods have yet to be invented because nobody so far is crazy enough to do the things necessary to make it?
Some fruits and berries ferment on the vine, allowing bears and other natural oenophiles to get stinking drunk on them. It has been happening before there were humans to notice.
Who knows? Maybe it fulfilled a 'public service' function mandated by the government?
A man of impeccable taste no doubt ... King Tut and I have managed to span the millenniums in our mutual love of a fine red wine. Borassa Valley reds from Australia are one of my favorites ... King Tut missed out on some great reds.
Hmmmm Me put in pocket.
Hmmmm Rock broke.
Hmmm Me put other one in brother's pocket.
Bwahahahahah Me play yolk on brother!
LOL! I'm just thankful they did along with the first guy who decided to pickle capers. I guess after 30,000+ years of eating we figured a few things out.
I've alway been intrigued by soap making. Fat, alkaloid water, boiling it down. Someone was really, really on the ball that day .
I also find it interesting that urine was a major source of cleaning fluid, even in the 1700s. Check out your shampoo bottle, we still use urea (main chemical in urine) today. Plus urea breaks down to form ammonia.
What I don't understand was that "lant" (old urine) was often used in baking of bread. I really can't figure out how that was a plus.
I sure do, Sam. A rudimentary sort of wine surely invented itself, as VadeRetro noted. Once confronted with the naturally occurring phenomenon, man improved upon it.
But what about one of my other favorite beverages, coffee? Who first thought to pick coffee berries, discard the flesh, roast the seeds, grind them, pour hot water over them, and drink the residue?
But back to wine, I've always liked the (probably apocryphal) story of the wine-making monk whose batch underwent an unexpected secondary fermentation after it had been bottled. The monk, Dom Perignon, bravely tasted the wine, which was assumed to have spoiled. "Brothers, come quickly! I am drinking stars!" he called, according to legend. He had, of course, discovered Champagne.
Or how about butter? What insane person came up with the idea to take cream from a cow, make it sour, and then churn it up until it turned into something solid?
I wonder how many other great foods have yet to be invented because nobody so far is crazy enough to do the things necessary to make it?
"Butter" first off it is fresh cream and salt, (not that it matters much if you don't have refrigeration), if you were to put cream in a gourd and go for a 20 mile hike (10 miles if your gait resembles the prance of someone from frisco), you will end up with butter, easy.
Cheese now that is a different story. Bread another story. (See you folks later, Me Google, Bread, Cheese, g'night)
I was saying this exact same thing to my wife last week. We were watching a Japanese TV show about making some sort of starch (can't remember the name now).
First they had to go out in the woods, find, dig up and cut off the roots of a certain tree (I probably would have stopped there. The odds of tree roots being delicious doesn't seem too high).
Then they took them back to the house and pounded the roots to fiber.
Soaked the fiber in water until a brown soup was left.
Let the solids settle to the bottom of the tub.
Drain and clean the top dirt layer off and a white layer that looked like chalk was left.
Put in more water and repeat this about 3 times.
What was left at the end was a white chalky looking substance. My wife says it's good but who went to all that trouble to find out in the first place?
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