Does anyone look at food and be amazed at it?

[Soubriquet]

Like who discovered that putting all these ingredients together would make some thing as simple as bread?

And then who decided let’s cook it again?!

Just me then?

No, not just you!

I often wonder that. How about cooking meat? Early humans ate it raw and survived, why bother?

My explanation is along the lines of realising that things are easier to chew and to digest. I am assuming teeth were lost easily then and then you were stuffed. Plus boredom and wanting some variety when we had time to start thinking about somethign other than having to run away from predators.

When I am the one cooking I still wonder if it's worth the hassle .
I also think obesity would not be an issue now...

Yay

It just amazes me sometimes. I mean the raw ingredients I understand, but who worked out that adding other stuff and baking it at a certain temperature made cake!

Trial and error I assume but still.

Like the first person who decided to try eating an egg....why?!

Cassava amazes me. Raw cassava can contain very high levels of cyanide, so it has to be quite heavily processed before it can be eaten. Just cooking it isn't enough. So presumably people ate this weird root thing, got sick... cooked it, got sick... mashed it up, fermented it for a bit, then cooked it and got sick... but just kept on messing with it until they finally figured out how to make it edible.

All kinds of animals eat eggs though, so I imagine that's something we've been doing and teaching our kids since before we were human.

Mushrooms!!

I mean just think one day, someone ate a mushroom, got sick and died

Another ate a mushroom and had a weird trip and hallucinations

Then another person ate a mushroom and went yum, nice

I always think this about pufferfish (eaten as sushi). It's extremely poisonous, unless you eat one specific part of it, prepared in a very specific way. Who were they experimenting on to figure this out?!

Cake! Who worked out if you mix those ingredients together, the result would be a fluffy sponge? What else have we not discovered?!

I'm always amazed by the chemistry behind cakes and other baked stuff. Who decided to try putting flour, sugar, eggs and butter together and then putting it in an oven. Why the oven and not the stove? It blows my mind all the time. And who the hell discovered aquafaba to turn into egg whites.

There's a book by Harold McGee about the chemistry behind food called something like The lore and science of cookery ? For those who might be interested.

I was thinking exactly that though recently. Specially about bread. How bizarre!