> You can suck the stem for sugar, but I'm not sure you could base much
> of a civilization on it. Unless you wanted to of course.
OTOH, I believe the current theory is that permanent settlements
derived from the need to stay in one place long enough to brew beer.
The big advantage of grass cereals, from what research I have just done*, is that they can be stored easily and don't require much preparation to be edible, by which I mean removing toxic/bitter chemicals.
The disadvantage of a lot of tubers (potatoes being an obvious exception) and non-grass cereals appears to be the difficulty of removing harmful substances and in some cases the difficulty of long term storage.
I'm beginning to think that a feature of Pamaltelan belief may be that, rather than the simple "grain goddesses" of Genertela, there is also a god or goddess who is the PREPARER of food; teaching the spiritually correct way of washing sago, the correct length of time to boil beans to appease the bean spirit, which parts of this plant to burn to chase away spirits of sickness, how to burn away the evil spirits that live on the outside of nopales** etc.
Such practices would help people get their food and possibly even with enough of a surplus to (whatever extent) create permanent settlements.
Of course, I could be WAY off base. :)
**prickly pear pads FYI.
Powered by hypermail