How do you think people of olden time in the uae at the time learnt what plants to eat and what plants not to eat?
Answers
Answer:
suppose it depends on how far back you want to go to define ancient. Most indigenous people who live in a specific area have an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants and animals that are useful for food, construction, medicine, weaving and dying clothing, etc. they garner this knowledge over generations of trial and error, and pass the information down from generation to generation. So if someone’s grandfather got sick eating a certain plant when he was a boy, he would teach that to his sons and grandsons.
You have to wonder how people discovered things like artichokes were edible, when they have such formidable and uninviting exteriors. How hungry would you have to be to excavate the edible core of that giant thistle and eat it. Or something like a sea urchin, all spiky and dangerous looking. People probably ate things out of desperation, and if they didn’t get sick, then other people would decide to eat them too. But it would have happened over hundreds of years, and probably a lot of people died from eating things that were toxic before they figured things out.
Insects are interesting. I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that certain varieties of locust are kosher, though no other insects are. There must have been a time when the ancestors of the Hebrew tribes were forced to rely on them as a food source, and that food memory got passed down, even after people stopped eating them. Westerners will gladly consume lobsters, shrimp and crab, but shy away from scorpions and tarantulas, which are happily enjoyed as street snacks in other pats of the world.