/ck/ - Food & Cooking

you're gay btw, pretty sure that matters

>>11168381
It was cool to be gay in Rome, as long as you're the pitcher and not the catcher.

>>11168376
The slaves tasked with building the great pyramids were actually paid in beer, they got the equivalent of a full keg of beer every day and the purpose was twofold.

First, to keep them inebriated enough that lugging giant stones around for 12 hours a day wasn't as miserable as it rightfully should've been and secondly to keep them hydrated since clean water was scarce at that time.

>>11168376
I wonder if it has anything to do with being "worth your salt"

>>11168399
Tell me more about these paid slaves.

>>11168420
Likewise. Excellent post, anon.

>>11168376
best post on /ck/ right now

>>11168376
I assume this is common knowledge but pound cake is so named because it the OG recipe used a pound of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs

>>11168376
Tea bags were originally used to distribute free samples but people liked the convenience

>>11168376
Birds can't taste capsaicin which is why hot peppers make it, birds have better distribution ranges than mammals

This is the only one I know off the top of my head. The word avocado stems from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word "Ahuacatl" (similarly, Aguacate in Spanish) which translates to testicle. The Aztecs thought the avocado looked like a ballsack and as such sometimes used it as an aphrodisiac.

In Wisconsin restaurants are legally required to offer cheddar cheese to people who order apple pie, though obviously that's not enforced

>>11168515
And it was invented by Americans. You're welcome europe.

>>11168532
They also will stay on the tree without over ripening which is nice for farmers because the groves essentially act like a warehouse and you can get them year round without major fluctuations in price because of that

>>11168536
naturally we would sacrifice quality for convenience God this country is a meme

>>11168376
What the fuck were you supposed to do with a bag of salt? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard

>>11168543
Neat! I didn't know that. Thanks, anon. But seriously OP, >>11168457 as this guy said this is the best thread on /ck/ right now. I love food related trivia.

>>11168549
Exchange it for goods and services. The Romans didn't really understand inflation. A bag of salt always keeps roughly the same value. A bag of denarii does not.

>>11168549
The main thing that comes to mind is salt was used as a food preservation method all throughout the world - look up salt curing, it's why something like beef jerky has a massive shelf life. Food with the moisture taken out tends to last longer due to the fact that bacteria has a harder time living on it.

>>11168549
Salt has variously been used as currency especially in places like Africa because it is essential to life and it's kind of hard to produce in a place like the Ivory Coast because it's too wet

>>11168551
Also all Hass trees share the same mother tree so every avocado out there are essentially half-siblings.

>>11168532
Oh hey, they actually do

>>11168593
Except the Fuerte avocados on the tree in my backyard.

>>11168607
I said "every" only because 95% of the american crop are Hass forgive me

>>11168376
Ill shill this, idgaf, its a good book OP. Read it sometime, absolutely fascinating.

Farm raised salmon is white, they at carotenoids to the fish diet to dye it pink before they ship it

Tomatoes were thought to be poisonous because back in the day they ate off of pewter plates which have lead in them and the acid in the tomatoes dissolved the lead and poisoning people

>>11168376
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_salt#Ancient_world
>The word "salary" comes from the Latin word for salt. The reason for this is unknown; a persistent modern claim that the Roman Legions were sometimes paid in salt is baseless

If you eat enough nutmeg you'll hallucinate, but I did this and had a 3 day hangover from it. Not worth it

>more food related
Sal is the root word of salad for the same reason.
Romans would dress greens with salt before they ate them. So before you return your salad for being too salty, just realize it's suppose to be salty.

>>11168613
I don't really take reading recommendations from a 15 yo seriously, sorry kiddo.

>>11168630
Aww shucks. Just in case you get curious, heres the book cover.

>>11168385
No, it wasn't.

It has never been "cool" to be gay anywhere......unless you're a faggot.

>>11168646
you never posted the book image in the first place - I'm not the same anon who replied to you, but when I tried looking up what you recommended I only say "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k", which is the cringiest book in existence. I think there may have been some confusion, thanks for the rec. anon either way

>payed

>>11168549
are you retarded? salt was the most valuable item in past, even more expensive than gold

>>11168376
Are you all just pretending to be retarded?
That's a 100% baseless folk etymology Pliny the Elder made up about an ancient past he had no actual evidence for. No soldiers of his time had anything remotely comparable to salt payment or even to the other version of this myth where it's an allowance for purchasing salt, and nobody has evidence this was done in the ancient past long before Pliny's time either. Roman authors came up with folk explanations for how things were in the ancient past without real evidence like this all the time, this is in the same category as the folk etymology of Romulus and Remus for Rome (with that one it's almost certainly not Rome that was named after the mythical Romulus character but Romulus who was named after Rome; Romulus basically means "Rome Jr." / "Little Rome").

>>11168689
you started strong but you really trailed off at the end there buddy.

>>11168701
>buddy.
Stopped reading there. Are you kidding me?

>>11168707
>stopped reading at the last word

>>11168532
>the most beloved fruit for soibois to guzzle is named after a nutsack.

Pottery

>>11168707
That's where you're supposed to stop eating you crayon eating retard

>>11168728
*reading - Jesus, I'm catching your stupid already

>>11168420
Yep, that's exactly where the phrase comes from. A hard working soldier was considered "worth their salt" in payment.

>>11168701
What's your problem exactly?
>>11168674
>are you retarded? salt was the most valuable item in past, even more expensive than gold
No it fucking wasn't. Holy shit, you guys need to stop being so gullible. A gram of gold would get you 40-50kg of salt depending on the time, the specifics not being too important except to say it was nowhere close to surpassing gold in value by any reasonable metric. You just fell for a retarded urban myth.

>>11168532
That's interesting, didn't know that.

>>11168674
>some shit you get from the ocean more expensive than gold

Nigga

>>11168627
All it did for me was give me cotton-mouth and made me feel a bit giddy. Maybe I didn't ingest enough.

>>11168733
Stop repeating that idiot myth. There isn't actual evidence to support that, it comes from a folk etymology Pliny the Elder made up about what was ancient history relative to his own time. Ancient Roman writers did this constantly, they would take words that look similar and come up with stories that explain their origin. It's this basically:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

>>11168689
Holy shit, shut up nerd, noone cares

>>11168761
You shut up you gullible retard.

>>11168757
Bzzt wrong. I feel bad for you lol

>>11168755
5-20g of nutmeg dosed orally. Note that the dose varies from person to person so it's best to start low and slowly build up. Also note that the come up time is very long so it is a bad idea to redose if you aren't feeling the effects.

>>11168775
Might give it another go one day. This was honestly about 10 years ago we tried it. Probably longer.

A hot dog is actually just another form of sandwich. People initially called them "hot dog sandwich" similar to how you might say "Cuban sandwich" but over time the sandwich was dropped from the name.

There's entire cuisines that'll never be experienced again simply because their ingredients went extinct. One example would be recipes found in the Apicius, cookbook from the Roman Empire. Some of them used silphium, a now-extinct plant that was also highly valued at the time.
Now, just think: how many more exotic flavours and dishes that we'll never taste again just due to their ingredients going extinct?

>>11168768
Here you go you gullible fucking idiot.
http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html
>This one has made it into Wikipedia too (‘soldiers who did their job well were “worth their salt”’). Unfortunately for Time and for the thousands of people who have repeated this idea, the phrase ‘worth one’s salt’ is definitely not Roman. It is first attested in the 1830s (Etymonline.com; for sources, see OED under ‘salt’). The thing about buying slaves with salt is fictional too.
Try to find an ancient Roman use of the phrase "worth their salt" in any writings from the time. You can't, it didn't show up until the 1830s and it has nothing to do with Roman soldiers.

>>11168789
Pfft, even the most extravagant and wealthy Roman aristocrat didn't know shit about eating a bag of nacho supreme doritos.

>>11168800
Bzzt wrong again lmao. Aren't you embarrassed with yourself?

>>11168817
>lol if i continue calling him wrong he has to be wrong at some point
Show your proof then, you dickless faggot. I'm not even that anon, I just wanna see a good fight.

>>11168783
depends on your size too. I was about 230 and took 25g
protip put it in a milkshake

>>11168829
bzzzzzzt still wrong haha lmao. WHy can't you just admit that that is where the phrase comes from?

>>11168817
stop being this way

>>11168829
How can you be a faggot yet dickless? Etymology gone haywire here.

>>11168376
Thanks doc

>retards are actually taking this bait

>>11168879
You're welcome. More to come tomorrow.

>>11168748
>Some shit you get from rocks more expensive than salt
Come on fag

>>11168829
He can't, he's just one of the many obnoxious plebs who go around repeating any random dubious bullshit they hear. He probably also believes you only use 10% of your brain and Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus.

>>11168625
You are baseless.

>>11168736
>A gram of gold would get you 40-50kg of salt depending on the time, the specifics not being too important except to say it was nowhere close to surpassing gold in value by any reasonable metric.

I would think that it would depend a lot on where you were geographically. Certainly salt was rarer in some places more than others, making it more valuable.

>>11168889
Make sure you've got actual real facts next time.

>>11168549
It was used to perserve food. Without it most people would have died during the winters. Salt literally kept people alive.

>>11168623
Just like wine in lead goblets

I love this thread.

>>11169290
oh gee whiz you think?
don't respond to morons

>>11168627
Man buddy told me nutmeg would make you hallucinate, well he didn't tell me how though.

>be me 17 smoking nutmeg in grandpa's pipe never got high on nutmeg

>>11168420
rubbing salt in a wound

>>11168376
Why didnt they just get a bucket of sea water and boil it, they could have had unlimited salt

>>11171612
You're supposed to eat it, not smoke it. And you need to eat a LOT, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 ounces IIRC

>>11168376
>>11168549
That isn't quite right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary#History

>>11168515
Sugar packets were originally made on tea-bagging machines.

>>11168627
>>11168755
the amount of nutmeg you need to consume to get high is literally like 4 ground cloves. It's a disgusting amount, and it makes you sick for days afterwards.I have heard it's a terrible high too, like a panic riddled mescaline trip mixed with alcohol.

It'd be illegal if it weren't such a completely impractical way to get high.

>>11169290
They were talking about ancient Rome, and also a range was used to cover that uncertainty since the exact number wasn't the point so much as the fact the "worth its weight in gold" myth is total bullshit. It never came anywhere close to being worth its weight in gold in that context, and I would be surprised if you could even find a well substantiated example of it being worth its weight in gold in some other context.
>>11170549
>You're a moron unless you repeat incredibly stupid urban legends
Fuck off already.

>>11168646
>Americans are so fucking obsessed with fast food that a book on salt become a best seller
Jesus Christ.

>>11168736
In the sense that salt could keep you alive and gold was worseless in a survival situation, salt was more valuable. Like if you were innawoods in Gaul or Germania far from Rome and you had to choose between taking a pound of salt or a pound of gold, you would take the salt. It's a stretch but maybe that is what that other anon meant.

>>11168844
You take a dick up the butt and like it.

>>11168844
Not sure if you know this, but faggots like to get fucked in the ass, and you don't need a dick to get bummed. Calling someone a dickless faggot makes them an even bigger faggot since it means they just get fucked, and never fuck themselves.

>>11172484
If you're so far removed from civilization that you can't trade your gold with anyone then how would you get a choice between equal and substantial amounts of salt and gold in the first place? Your starting premise means you're not far removed from civilization to be able to choose one or the other in the first place, and you could purchase way more salt in preparation for a trip far removed from civilization if you selected a massive pile of gold when given the option to choose between that and equal quantity of salt by some mentally ill trader who didn't realize how stupid his offer to you was.
More to the point though it's a stupid urban legend that people repeat because they're told it's a "fun fact" or see it in some poorly researched non-academic article written by some other jackass repeating an urban legend they heard.