The point that I think would make an intriguing point of departure though is to look at preservation vs production: hunter gatherers by an large eat what they produce. As soon as anyone figures out though that they cannot eat all of what they gather in one sitting or that they might want some of what they produce to be available at a later time, a day, a month, a season or two later, the question of preservation / storage arises.
Pre-refrigeration methods of presevation include drying, salting / brining. brewing into fermented beverages, sugaring / making into preserves or fruitcake, canning, fermenting, pickling. Speculating with no research assistant minions to help dig up facts, there are some interesting energy balance, calorie expenditure, stability vs uncertainty of supply questions that would offer interesting ways to view different hsitorical eras and conflicts.
But onward to other time commitments.
DC
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:52 AM, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net>wrote:
> I read a pre-pub copy of Salt and while I liked it the author seemed to
> overstate the case salt played in political conflicts.
> More than once. Many more times than I can recall.
> At least that is my recollection.
>
> John Thornton
>
>
>
>
> shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
>> poking around at links Dwayne's pointed at, I came across refs to various
>> books related to Pollan's work: Gary Tabues' Good Calories; Bad Calories,
>> Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History, and Paul Roberts' The End of Food.
>> All of which I'd recommend if you're at all interested in excellent
>> scientific investigative reporting -- though Krulansky's more an
>> encyclopedic look at salt that runs rather dry.
>>
>> I chuckled reading Salt. It's not that Pollan doesn't know this stuff,
>> it's just funny that he prefers to leave it out because it doesn't assist
>> his thesis. Salt was one of those goods that made it possible to preserve
>> food and, thus, was important to trade in food stuffs. In addition, one of
>> the things that Pollan complains about it the way it's difficult to make
>> money off plain old food. In order to make money, you have to add some
>> value. Corn on the cob is never going to be as profitable as canned cream
>> corn, corn dogs, and high fructose corn syrup, beef not as profitable as a
>> Lean Cuisine frozen meal of Beef Stroganoff. But of course, that was the way
>> it was 2000 years ago, too. Only, in this case, it was salted whale tongue v
>> plain old whale tongue, prosciutto instead of pork, and other examples that
>> escape me entirely too uncaffeinated brain at the mo'. To make money, people
>> had to produce a more refined product -- add value -- because otherwise
>> there was no profit in it.
>>
>> Like I said, this probably wouldn't be news to Pollan, nor would the
>> global trade in food that's been around for so long. Still, it's interesting
>> that he makes, among other things, the value add to food a target of his
>> critique when the issue is ancient. Also, as for the cuisines of the
>> Mediterranean he's so hot on -- because knowledge that is close to nature
>> (and mimics the logic of nature ) is better than that which is not -- well,
>> I don't know, but it was interesting to learn why catholics don't eat meat
>> -- or didn't -- on holy days, and the reasons behind why they weren't
>> allowed to. Red meat is hot, and therefore causes sexual excitement, so no
>> no on a holy day (and no sex either!). So, about 50% of their days were
>> spent not eating red meat for some bizarre ass reasons promulgated by the
>> Catholic church.
>>
>> Close to nature?
>>
>> tee hee.
>>
>> shag
>>
>>
>>
>> http://cleandraws.com
>> Wear Clean Draws
>> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
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