The comedian Groucho Marx once said, "It was a very brave man who ate the first oyster!".
Well, it's a funny remark, and gets a laugh.But would it be true?I have written,in other posts,that Mankind was forever asking "What if I did this,what would happen?".
The curiosity of Man has no bounds, and a million or so years ago Man was asking another question, "Why?".
Like all Primates, Man is a copier; he watches and learns.One Man would not have walked in to the sea, picked up an oyster, broke open the shell, and ate the oyster. No, many men would have watched the birds. How the sea-birds picked up sea shells and dropped them from a great height to smash the shell open.
But, even with a tiny brain, primitive Man was not stupid! He would have seen birds eat things before; and he tried to eat the same fruit or berries, and they made him vomit.
So Man would watch other animals.
The Sea Otter has a clever little trick. He lays on his back, floating in the sea, and carries a flat stone in his front paws.He puts the stone on his chest, and cracks open an Oyster shell by banging it repeatedly on the stone.
So, it would not be one Man who ate the first Oyster. It would be many men watching, and copying.
And what about primitive women? They were just as curious as the men.
At that time, Mankind wouldn't know how to "make" fire,but they knew how to use natural fire.They knew it gave warmth and light. They learnt how to "control" fire, by keeping it in a ring of stones. Then the group could sit by the fire and keep warm.
Primitive Man had by this time learnt of many foods besides fruit and berries. They had learnt that seeds were a good food. One type of seed was far more "bountiful" than any other; grass seed.
But eating the seed just as it was gathered was not so good. So the women learnt that if they pounded the seed with a stone, and mixed it with water, the "paste" was better and easier to eat.
It wouldn't be very long before some of this "paste" would accidentally "drop" on to a hot stone from the fire.
What a waste! It could't be eaten because it was hot!
But, the eternal question, "What if?"
What if I ate it after it had gone cold?
Primitive Mankind had discovered the most eaten food in the world today. Bread!
Brown bread and butter, with Oysters, and Guinness Stout. That,my friends, is "food fit for the Gods"!
This post made me hungry, but thank you for sharing! Fermentation must have been a great discovery, too. "Oh no, I've left these grains out for too long after it rained and now they've gone all manky, and if you drink too much of the juice then you get dizzy." "Why on earth did you drink the manky grain juice? Let's do this more often!"
People will take from it what they will. It's a very interesting and insightful perspective on a couple different subjects, that I found very enjoyable. Thank you. Very very clever.
fullspace, I was trying to explain that the curiosity of early Mankind was the beginning of witchcraft. That's what witchcraft is! Observing, seeking, learning, experimenting. Witchcraft is only the European word for The Craft. But the main purpose of witchcraft is the "searching for new knowledge", and has been so since Mankind first walked on two legs!
Let me give an example. Any Primate can find a long stick and learn to throw it. But only Man shaped a stick into a point and made a spear! If we could go back in time and ask that man "Why did you do that?"
He would probably say, "I don't know! It just seemed like a good idea."
That's witchcraft! Whether eating the first Oyster, or making the first bread!
I noticed something a few years ago, our society is getting use to being spoonfed answers. So many years ago my family decided to go to the movies because my grandparents wanted to see The Lone Ranger [yes, the one staring Jonny Depp] I didn't like it but they loved the movie. On the way home my grandparents raved about the moral of the story, and I spent half the ride trying to figure out at what point they gave us a moral. I finally asked what the moral was. The apparent moral they received was 'see how we treated the Indians [Native Americans] 100 years ago? Pushing them aside until they became a novelty? The same thing keeps happening'. [Now, my grandparents believe white Christians are becoming extinct in the world, but still I was baffled they both walked out with a moral. But the more I thought of it, I realized our culture is becoming use to not thinking and just being handed answers.] Sorry, the whole thread made me think of that.
People seem afraid to experiment today. to quote my grandfather 'before, if I fell down, I would get back up. Today I have to tell you kids I don't want it going viral' while funny, he's got a point, people are terrified to be proven a fool, and with cameras everywhere somebody [friend or stranger] could document your embarrassing moment for everyone to see. Failure can be better than success because you learn, but we don't want to be labeled a failure, so we follow the crowd. [Which I guess circles things back around to human nature]
Lol, sorry about this rambling post, just some thoughts that came to mind.
