In "engines" episode # 1471 the failure of the first settlement at Jamestown is ascribed
to malnutrition caused by tryptophan deficiency in maize.
I think the guy that wrote that book didn't do his homework. The Indians everywhere
grew maize and beans together. The two make a well balanced diet, as far as having all
the important amino acids is concerned.
I feel certain that when the Jamestown people got maize seed to plant, they also got
beans to plant, though I can find nothing on Internet to that effect.
At Plymouth, a couple years before the Pilgrims landed,the Indians in the vicinity had lost
nine tenths of their numbers, presumably from an infection brought by European fishermen.
They were not strong enough to fight the Pilgrims. In addition, an Indian who learmed tp speak
English because he had been kidnapped and taken to England (by one Thomas Hunt -( no relation,
I assure you ) and been allowed toreturn taught the colonists how to raise corn. It was to be
planted when "the leaves on the white oak were the size of a mouse's ear" . And beneath it
was to be put a herring (alewife) as fertillizer. The Indians had in many places weirs for trapping
the fish in the rivers when they came quite early to spawn.
I have never heard of herring being available in the Jamestown area. This would have meant that
the Jamestown people had little or nothing for fertilizer for the maize, which could have greatly
reduced yield, and contributed to severe food shortage.
Wordwind, and comments?

Got a question for you, Dr. Bill. What is "engines"?

All I have to contribute for the moment is that turkey is full of triptophane.

And yes, corn, beans and squash, as Faldage reminds me, were known among the natives as "the three sisters."

Dear AS: A wonderful engineer at the University of Houston has had a weekly radio program
about science and engineering. I am now up to episode # 1746. Here is the URL. You can edit
the episode number in the Location Box to get back to the beginning. They are short, and I have
learned something from; every one of them. And, mirabile dictu, he is no chauvinist male pig.
He has had many, many episodes about important women scientists I never heard of before.
This latest one is about a socialite lady who go tired of servants ruining her heirloom china,
invented and marketed the first dishwashing machine.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1476.htm

actually, maize is not really deficent in tryptophan -- its just the amino acid is locked up, and can't be metabolized unless first treated. the most common way to treat it, is with an a (no dictionary handy and brain dead) a "Base" -- such as lye, (sodium hydroxide) or sodium bicarbonate, or the like.

homey or samp or the blue corn meal of the Hopi indians has all been treated this way.(untreated blue corn will turn yellow when cooked, to keep it blue, you must add a "base".)

Most of the american indians used wood ashes to treat the corn, and the idea of adding wood ashes was so foreign to europeans, they just didn't do it for years! (and then they tended to soak the corn in lye, to make hominy, rather than add wood ashes to a corn meal batter, and then use the batter to make corn cakes.)

Europeans persisted in trying to make corn bread with yeast, (and since corn does haven't a lot of gluten, and doesn't make the same kind of dough, it doesn't really work with yeast.) it wasn't till after the civil war, with commercial produced baking soda that "quick" corn pone as we now know it became popular. (i read a book about Corn a few months ago, and know more that any one could want about the subject!)

adding beans or meat to the diet will also work, but treated corn is the easiest way to increase the nutrition.

the most common way to treat it, is with an a (no dictionary handy and brain dead) a "Base" -- such as lye, (sodium hydroxide) or sodium bicarbonate, or the like.


an alkili (pronounced "al'-kill-eye") is the word you were blocking, I think.

Is that where the name "lye" came from in the first place, I wonder?

the amino acid is locked up

I had heard, in an anthro class, that there's something in chilis that helps us utilize the amino acids in corn and beans. But last time I checked chilis were acidic. Is this something else going on?

" -- its just the amino acid is locked up, and can't be metabolized unless first treated. the most common way to treat it, is with an a (no dictionary handy and brain dead) a "Base" -- such as lye, (sodium hydroxide) or sodium bicarbonate, or the like."

Does calcium carbonate fall into this category?

At least nobody seem to agree with the author of the book in thinking that the Jamestown
colonists died becauise of a deficiency disease. On another thread here I learned that Mexicans
and other South Americans enhance nutrive value of corn by treatment with alkali in small amounts.
I wonder how they learned the value of this, because it takes so long for the benefits to become
apparent. Look how long it took for Europeans to learn how to avoid scurvy.

Doesn't 'base' mean 'alkili'? (damn, that word looks weird)

edit: No wonder. It's "alkali."

You're thinking of al-qaida. Close but

that word looks weird

And well it might. Does it look any better as alkali? It's from Arabic al-qily, the ashes.

You're right, of course. Alkali. (I've been tending to make that misspelling for decades now!) And yes, the alkalis are basic as opposed to acids which are acidic.

I still want "lye" to have been named for alkali...it would be so right.

Ha! Beat ya to it.

Meanwhile:
http://www.chemicalelements.com/groups/alkali.html

I still want "lye" to have been named for alkali

Nope. Lye is a good old IE word. No Semitic nothing.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE283.html

alkali - 14c., from M.L. alkali, from Ar. al-qaliy "the
ashes" (of saltwort, a plant growing in alkaline soils), from
qalay "to roast in a pan." Alkaline is attested from 1677.

From Anna's link: Alkali metals can explode if they are exposed to water.

The Alkali Metals are:
Lithium
Sodium
Potassium
Rubidium
Cesium
Francium
I seem to recall warnings about cesium in chemistry class. I find it a little startling that the first 3 on this list (that I know of) are ingested by humans; presumably they are "fixed" in some way so as to prevent them from exploding when you put them in your mouth and add water so you can swallow them!

Well, shoot--another "bright idea" of mine shot down: the word cesium made me think of cerise, but: [From Latin caesius, bluish gray (from its blue spectral lines).] (Atomica)

As to the alkali/lye connection, I think that surely there must be one, never mind Bartleby's Old English, Germanic, Old Norse, Latin, and Greek citations for lye. Look, these roots all mean soap, lathering, washing, etc. AND, Arabic al-qily, the ashes : lye soap was/is made from ashes! That's just too close to be coincidence, methinks.

I noticed that Bartleby listed our old friend:lutefisk

SYLLABICATION: lu·te·fisk
PRONUNCIATION: lt-fsk
VARIANT FORMS: also lut·fisk ( ltfsk)
NOUN: A traditional Scandinavian dish prepared by soaking air-dried cod in a lye solution for several weeks before skinning, boning, and boiling it, a process that gives the dish its characteristic gelatinous consistency.
ETYMOLOGY: Norwegian : lut, lye (from Swedish, from Old Norse laudhr, soap, foam; see leu()- in Appendix I) + fisk, fish (from Old Norse fiskr).
Must say the final description makes my gorge rise...

"fixed" in some way

The danger comes from handling the metals in their pure form. Once they become joined up with something they lose their danger. Sodium and chlorine, sitting around by their lonesome are deadly; whomp 'em together and they make common table salt.


too close to be coincidence

There's too many words floating around out there. It would be more unbelievable for there not to be coincidences like this.

Does calcium carbonate fall into this category?

yes, it does, and much of the ground water in the western part of the US is naturaly very "sour" with calcium carbonate and other alkaline 'salts'

and yes, cod is treated with lye to make lutefish, and so are olives--when the are 'cured' and so is corn to make "hominy" (which is then ground up, dried, and cooked again to make grits!) it sounds strange, but various peoples, in various places in the world, have all learned to use lye to 'cook' or 'cure' foods. most alkaloids compounds form 'salts'-- not common salt, but salts none the less. "saltpeter' is poisonous in all but the smallest quanities, but in small quanities, it cures meat and make sausage (and meat) safe to eat even if it hasn't been refridgerated. and sodium bi-carbonate is 'baking soda' and used as a medicine.

the lye solution is rather mild, (it should be so mild that when tasted on the tip of the tongue, its just has a small bite, according to one recipe i read)
i am facinated by how ancient (and even not so ancient-- just a 150 years ago)people used natural products to do rather advanced chemisty, with out having a clue of why it worked, just knowing it did.

people 'knew' how to make gun powder... use a wooden mortor and pestle and mix together charcoal, (preferable form willow wood) guano and sulfer (or brimestone as it was commonly know) and then when it was as fine as fine could be, add a little water to 'corn' it.

(they didn't know why that worked but it did... turn out willow charcoal tends to be "pitted" and water help bond the guana (nitrate) and sulfur to the wood, so the mixture became a compound..that is bound together, and the seperate components didn't seperate out with time.

salt was also extracted from ashes, and of course potash, is just pot ash-- the potasium was first extracted from ashes!

baking powder, is a rather new "invention" and came directly from experiments with indian cooking with ashes to make corn breads. below the fold, back in the spring of this year, there was a thread on salt (there was one above the fold too, but this was one of Dr Bill's and had a list of salt related works, some of them also realate to ashes.

i rememember reading more about them in "Salt" and will go and see if i can find a link to the book.

EDIT
here is a link to the book on salt,
http://www.saltbook.com/links.php

you can read the first chapter on line, and there are many links to other salt related sites.