Have you ever wondered how we decided to eat potatoes?

[satireV]

Potato tops are poisonous. Why would anyone deicde to eat the underground part?

{Ancient caveperson mode on}

Umm the tops of the plant tasted good but they make me very sick and killed my family! So let's eat the root!}

{Ancient caveperson mode off}

Don't EVEN get me started on tomatoes!



:bounce:

[anarch]

1. shit, what about artichokes?

I don't think any part is poisonous, but it's got thorns on it for chrissakes.

I'm guessing most everything in the human diet was a product of trial and error. "Say, this one part of this ugly, foul smelling plant didn't kill anybody who ate it! Let's make soup!"

[LostinVA]

2. No, pineapples -- they are a frigging WEAPON

[Heidi]

9. May I ask you a question?

I've not checked your profile, so I don't know whether you're male or female. _But_ in my experience, guys generally dislike pineapple and coconut. Are you a guy?

Edited to add: I checked your profile. How do you feel about coconut?

[LostinVA]

11. Loathe -- I love pineapple, but not preparing it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

23. I love pineapple

And I generally like coconut in things (cookies, pies, cakes, etc.)

And I'm a man.

[Heidi]

28. I have a recipe from my mom

for a dessert called "Better Then Sex Cake" that has pineapple, coconut, whipped cream, pecans and yellow cake. It is _YUM_ but I've never met a man who'd eat more than one forkful of it. Maybe you'd like it. I know I _love_ it. :hi:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

30. That does sound good

If it wouldn't be a bother, I'd like to try that.

Could you PM me the recipe?

[Heidi]

32. You betcha.

I'm gettin' ready to start dinner, but I'll send PM it to you in my morning (your night). :hi:

[KitchenWitch]

45. PM me the recipe too!

My husband and I both like coconut.

[fleabert]

36. can I get that recipe too?

anything that is advertised as better than sex gets my full attention!

[Heidi]

40. Ha!

Sure thing, fleabert. I'm beginng to wonder whether this recipe is a "southern thing," and that the rest of the country has been deprived of it. :rofl: Check your PMs in the morning. :hug:

[fleabert]

41. :-) I think my mom used to make it!

Sounds very familiar to a dessert I used to eat every August at my Great Grandma's birthday party. My mom has lost track of many of her recipes, having packed up everything and moved a few times in the last five years. I am dying to find this recipe again! Hope this one is it!

ps-I am from Texas!

[Rowdyboy]

25. Two guys here who adore both pineapple and coconut....

Maybe its the gay thing :shrug:

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

47. Completely straight - love coconut and pineapple!

Hell, I'm not even metrosexual!! :toast:

I AM completely comfortable with my sexuality, however, so maybe that's the part of it we're missing? :shrug:

[Rowdyboy]

48. Ya got it! Most of my best friends in life have been straight men....

I'm not saying there have never been difficulties-alcohol etc have led to some interesting situations, to say the least. I can honestly say, I've never lost a good friend over my sexuality.

[xmas74]

26. Brother loves both.

Surprisingly, it's his wife who cannot stand either.

[Heidi]

27. I'd love to cook for your brother.

:hi:

[xmas74]

29. Actually, he'd be more likely to cook for you.

His wife finishes her bachelors in another year and they are planning to move for her masters. While there he is planning on taking culinary arts courses.

He's a very good cook right now and will only get better in time!

[Heidi]

31. I married a guy like that.

Call Me Wesley can cook me under the table any day of the week. And I'm happy to let him. ;) (He's the meat guy, and I'm the dessert / baking guy in this partnership. The Wiley and Excellent Cat Named Ginger is the "Whatcha gonna do with that butter?" guy. ;) )

[xmas74]

33. I'm now a baker by trade.

My mom worked as a baker for years. My brother hates baking in general-says it's too specific.

His wife is a couple of years older than him. Before she met him she'd make Hamburger Helper and open a can of veggies for herself and the kids. That was the extent of her cooking skils.

Now she and the kids are quite happy. They get meals made from scratch every night for dinner and lunch on the weekends. They come see me when they want something sweet.:9

[Heidi]

34. What a great job!

I love baking! :bounce:

We cook from scratch every night, too. I haven't eaten fast food since sometime in 1998. :)

[xmas74]

37. We eat it only as a treat.

My daughter sometimes earns gift certificates from school. We save them up and go out about once a month but she must pick milk as her drink and either a fruit or a side salad to go with the chicken nuggets that she always orders! Our most common place to eat out is actually our church. We have a dinner there every Wednesday night. The price is very reasonable ($2 for her, $4 for me), the proceeds go to youth groups, everything is from scratch and it's all you can eat. Each Wed. is a different theme for the meal and there is always variety. I sometimes volunteer in the kitchen for the meals on those days.

I love baking too but there is no money in the field where I live and almost no benefits. If someone would pay me a living wage I'd bake forever!

[Heidi]

39. These posts about food always come

about half an hour before we eat dinner, xmas, and I'm soooooooooooo hungry. :cry: What kinds of foods are on the Wednesday night menu at your church?

I sort of know what you mean about no money in baking. In one midwestern state, where I was an editor keeping very odd hours, the local bakery opened at _3 a.m._, and it seemed that the owner and his staff worked round the clock, and though they always were very friendly, everyone there seemed tired. (It was a family business, and the owner and his wife had a whole bunch of kids, all of whom helped out and then went off to school at 8 a.m.)

[xmas74]

42. This week is a fish feast,

in time for Ash Wednesday. Last week was a Mardi Gras theme-beans and rice, jambalaya, etc. We always have lots of sides, salads, fresh baked bread, fruit and desserts. They also offer options for low sodium diets, diabetics and even have the Weight Watchers points listed on cards for the desserts!

[Heidi]

43. OK, that's it.

I'm dying of hunger right now, and it's Call Me Wesley's night to cook. (He always runs a little later than I do. ;) ) Tonight, it's steaks and asparagus. *Faint.*

(At our Carnivale down in the next closest town tonight, they're having a big, Italian "Risotto" dinner. YUM! :thumbsup: )

[xmas74]

44. I had a small filet mignon for lunch

w/ a nice garden salad and am now working on an orange.

Your meal sounds wonderful. And I've love a Risotto dinner!

My church, for what they offer, has the best meal-deal in town. Nice variety and a cheap price plus we invite those w/o family or a home of their own in for a free meal on Wednesdays to share in our hot meal and a decent conversation w/o prayers or attempted conversions of any sort. And Wednesday is our busiest day of the week so it's nice to know that my daughter will get a good meal even though I didn't make it!

[Strong Atheist]

3. There was a National geographic article on potatoes some

10 -15 years ago... there are thousands of types, not the 8 or so we use in the U.S. Maybe the article said how the ancient Native Americans found out about tomatoes and potatoes... probably observed animals eating those ...

[XemaSab]

15. Animals eat many foods that are either gross or poisonous

:shrug:

[Bassic]

4. Have you ever wondered how many people died

trying out different varieties of mushrooms?

[RebelOne]

5. I have always wondered who was the first person to decide

that something as ugly as a lobster would be good to eat.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Nopales

Just how desperate does one need to be to look at a cactus and think it would be tasty?

[Heidi]

7. I know how _I_ decided to eat potatoes.

Mom put them on the table with some butter, and said, "No dessert until you eat your potatoes." :)

[Taverner]

8. Probably because people in the new world were hard pressed for food

And they were already eating lots of other roots at the time.

[Hugin]

10. There were lots of famines...

LOL!

[Deja Q]

12. As with rhubarb, they tested the parts on slaves as torture...

When the slave said "Yum" instead of "Ackkkkkkk!", they fed it to the Lords and Kings instead. :D

[Orangepeel]

13. don't any animals eat them?

with unprocessed food, I think our ancestors probably just saw something else eat it and figured they'd try it too.

[auntAgonist]

14. It was a BRAVE person who first decided to try an EGG!

I mean , really ... "oh look, that bird just dropped that thing out of it's butt, let's eat it"


:rofl:

[cemaphonic]

16. I personally wonder about olives:

"Ugh, this fruit is bitter, and it gave me stomach cramps for a week."

"Maybe it would taste better if we soaked it in poison for awhile."

"Hey, great idea!

[oneighty]

17. Kinda like Hominy

Step one. Soak in sodium hydroxide.

Yuk.

180

[trof]

18. Tomatoes: Love Apples

They were considered to be poisonous.

[oneighty]

19. Native American

Living in what was not then South America say; "Here Hispanic person eat this. Then try corn and tomato then smoke this peace pipe Hispanic person."

So he did take a toke, a big one.

Coughhhhhhh Coughhhhhhh Deep breath; "Man that's some good shit!"

Columbia Gold was discovered. Then Hispanic person eat any damn thing.

And so it was. Long ago.

180

[Catchawave]

20. How did we EVER decide to eat animals ?

Euwwww, and why I don't buy into Intelligent Design.

[Lilith Velkor]

21. Not much else to eat in the Ice Age

We are the only hominid species that didn't go extinct then. Hell, we probably killed and ate other humans at some points.

[zanne]

38. How about milk?

I wonder who first decided that cow's milk was something people should drink?

[tjwmason]

22. They were served once at the court of Elizabeth I.

When they were still a novelty in England, the cooks didn't realise that they were supposed to use the root and so cooked the leaves which caused some illness round the court.

[TheBaldyMan]

24. Intelligent Cuisine

this latest theory about the origin of eating of potatos superceded the currently less popular 'Potatoism theory' that stated we just started eating potatos completely out of the blue.

[fleabert]

35. what about olives?

disgusting right off the tree! did one fall into a jar of vinegar and a few days later someone thought, 'well, I'm just going to eat that green thing that fell in that jar!'

blech.

[Katherine Brengle]

46. It probably happened out of desperation, but man am I glad it did!

I love my po-ta-toes. My sister is in the kitchen making some baked potatoes with now.

Mmmmmm..........

[Karenina]

52. I love them too... BUT

In the last years it is difficult to find potatoes that aren't GREEN. Green potatoes have been exposed to light and are POISONOUS. No matter. The companies simply pack them in pink plastic or bright yellow nets so you wont notice till you get home.

I don't eat them as often as I used to... :-(

[myrna minx]

49. I've always thought about that regarding coffee.

:hey--let's take some beans, roast them, grind them and then pour hot water over them and see what happens. It was probably some brilliant Mayan invention, but still.

[woo me with science]

53. bob newhart got part of a routine out of that

so you're in good company wondering.

[liontamer]

50. from watching pigs

[Akoto]

51. I don't know, but I'm glad we did!

I loooove potatoes. Mashed, fried, baked, any kind. :loveya:

Since intelligent design is so popular now, I think Jesus is the reason. "Thou shalt eat taters." It's the forgotten eleventh commandment.