Re: Superstition or omen?


"Halla" <halla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:farrd3p5gu5d16a632qfm54o04sa3usl8l@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 12:31:12 +0100, "Rhiannon_s"
<mddestiny@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> blethered:



"Halla" <halla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7qeqd3tmp47e6stvhm124ivgb07enc8l1m@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 1 Sep 2007 01:09:16 +0100, "Jymn" <jymnat@xxxxxxxxx>
blethered:

In urp, Halla wrote:
[Knowledge of edible flora/fauna]

If all this knowledge was somehow swept away tomorrow, would
we be able to reclaim it?

Whoever was around in a thousand or twos years time would have
reclaimed
at
least enough of it.

It'd be an interesting study. <eg>

Didn't the BBC do a reality doc in the 70s about people having to go and
live in the iron age? Admittedly no *real* penalty if they failed, but
still they had to learn to do that sort of stuff. They ended up eating
rats
IIRC.

Was there a similar one more recently? I forget now. See there's one
on C4 about living on a dump for three weeks? I didn't see the one in
the 70s, and you must have an exceptional memory to recall it yourself
if you saw it. <g>

Oh, hah, hah, hah :o) I saw the repeat when it was on in november 94 when I
was on study leave for my pre-lims. In hindsight I would have been better
actually studying, but y'know...



Working from family anecdotes, wild food became significant in diet
during
the Depression / General Strike, which suggests that its significance
was
much less before that time.

But that people knew what they could eat. I wonder if there are enough
people left with the relevent skills even now to teach others.

yes. Vast swathes of humanity are still doing it, even in europe.

We are on an island though - would mainland Europe point and laugh at
the daft Britishers? <:-)

They laugh at us anyway, usually with good reason especially when it comes
to our silly work 'til we drop lifestyle. I'm sure there are enough people
with bits of foraging and food raising knowledge to form adequate local
communites. Admittedly most of these will be in the more rural areas and
cities will die. But my point was that the foraging and knowledge required
to live off the land still exists in enough of the global population (and is
in active use even in first world europe and has vestigial traces in the UK)
that there is no danger of humanity being wiped out if first world countries
succumbed to some sort of super depression.

Our
urbanised society would crumble and die, but there are enough people with
the required skills to ensure continuity of species (worse luck for the
planet).

Yeah well. <:-/

We could probably limp on "Survivors" style in a few small local
communities short term even in this country.

There would be all kinds of chaos though. <eg>



During the 30s reliance declined, but was
rapidly revived during the Second World War and rationing. The
practise
of
gathering wild harvest dwindled to some fruit picking, which now seems
to
be
in decline.

There's plenty of people who seem to subscribe to the 'Can't eat that,
it grew in the *ground*!!!!' mentality, from what I can see. So even
wild fruit would be suspect and not to be eaten. Oh well, more for me.

Charles Darwin and his Chainsaw of Natural Selection would be called into
use for those sorts of people.

Or a good slap to the chops, Airplane-stylee. Won't fix anything but
it will make a lot of people feel better.


It does make me chuckle to think that people will spend a fortune on
fruit bushes, including brambles, then hack the wild ones to bits if
they dare invade the garden.

I know, I know. But on bright side it means that the required fruit
bushes
are available in their gardens for us to eat and propogate after Charles
D.
has finished with their previous owners.

This is true. Not so much for brambles, which appear anywhere they're
not wanted. Or raspberries, which I seem to have growing wild at my
back gate. Or strawberries, which have mysteriously appeared in the
gaps between the slabs... (all of this would be great if I ever got to
see any of the fruit)


I still don't get ornamental brambles though

Orna... what? How does that work, exactly? Mind you, I don't get
ornamental pepper plants.


People grow certain varities of brable not for the berries which can
vetigial at best, but the coloured stems in winter. Seems a bit daft as
they are no less invasive. A lot of the ornamental peppers however can be
safely eaten. People just can't be convinced to buy peppers for cooking if
they aren't green or red though. Purple seems to be right out.


--
Rhiannon_s
Once you accept "because" as a valid reason the world becomes a much simpler
place.


.

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