pomophobe

[Eric Nielsen]

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:


> ....Now, whether an olive is green or ripe, there isn't anything about the
> raw fruit that would cause anyone to consider it to be edible. During
> every olive season, the school paper publishes recipes for the use of
> fresh olives. Apparently, among other things, the olives have to be
> steeped in a lye solution for a certain length of time.
>
> WTF?! How did it ever occur to anyone to soak a foodstuff in lye?
>
> Really, y'all,
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -Wilson
>

That's a very interesting Ethnobotanical question. Some ancient food
preparations are very involved, and I have often wondered how someone
figured out the process in the first place: trial and error, early knowledge
of chemistry, instruction from spacemen?

Eric

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