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#148267 09/28/05 12:51 PM
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They probably accidentlally dropped a piece of cod in the ashes and discovered they could still eat it three weeks later.


#148268 09/28/05 05:24 PM
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And then a lawyer hauled the cod into court and charged it with impersonating food. The cod swore up and down that he was actually edible. The lawyer was forced to conclude:

"As cod is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."



TEd
#148269 09/28/05 11:08 PM
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They probably accidentlally dropped a piece of cod in the ashes and discovered they could still eat it three weeks later.

This is, of course, the actual history of how black olives were found to be edible, sort of.



#148270 09/29/05 12:42 AM
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And the story of soap, or so I read. But tell!


#148271 09/29/05 12:52 AM
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Olives have been on the table for about 35 centuries. Your standard olive is inedible when first harvested in that it contains a large amount of acrid glucosides which are horrendously bitter. To remove this, olives are soaked for a few days in lye (doubtless produced from wood ashes, which added a bit of the flavour of the particular wood). Then they were soaked in brine and finally approached edibility. How they got those little pimento things in the middle is yet to be discovered.


#148272 09/29/05 01:01 AM
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>>How they got those little pimento things in the middle is yet to be discovered<<

Cortez brought three things with him to Mexico: the sword, the candle, and the martini.

#148273 09/29/05 02:30 AM
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ok it a food thread already--but lots of different cultures have used lye to 'cure food'
olives, lukefish, and hominy are the first three that come to mind..

acid and salt are also used.

the romans used a 'fish sauce' that gave every indication of being rotten --except it wasn't-- which was a good thing, since they put the stuff on damn near everything.. (ancient day equivient of the standard american and ketchup)

cheese is just curdled milk that we all agree is edible.. (and the same goes double for 'blue cheeses'.




#148274 09/29/05 02:34 AM
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In reply to:

cheese is just curdled milk that we all agree is edible.. (and the same goes double for 'blue cheeses'.


Who's we? I remember reading in one of Amy Tan's books the description by one of the narrators of the first time she saw cheese and had no idea what it was.

Bingley



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#148275 09/29/05 03:29 AM
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Once upon a time, a great many years ago, I was serving in Korea and had a task (some heavy lifting) with which some strong young Korean lads assisted. As a thank-you and a treat, I went to the club on the army base and got a couple of pizzas to go. When I returned with Cokes and pizza, the boys were aghast. They loved the Coca Cola, but they asked me, as they sniffed the pizza, how I could eat something that had rotten milk on it.


#148276 05/29/06 12:31 AM
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I, too, hated true/false and multiple choice tests, because all too often the question was not written in such a way that I could really decide on the "answer." I always was finding 'yes, but's and 'only if's and 'all or none of the above's, but in order to make an acceptable grade and continue through the system I would usually make a mark.
One of my children, in second grade, wrote ridiculous answers in her reading comprehension test blanks, because..."Why do they ask us such dumb questions?" I loved it!

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