Ancient food are absurdly complicated. (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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People can grow vegetables and simply eat. But bread is way too complicated.

There is a bakers' dozen of big steps to go from wheat into bread. And multiple special structures needed too.

Same with beer. Wine makes total sense but how do you even invent ale? How are these common foods everyone knows and uses?

I was thinking "imagine if mediveal people knew how to boil seawater and sell salt" and now I spent 20 extra minutes in the shower.

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[-] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

They knew you could, but mostly didn't because it takes a ton of energy to boil off water. There was no petroleum, no coal, so you would need a bunch of wood. So you use a bunch of wood to boil a liter of ocean water and you would get about 35 grams of salt. It just wasn't worth it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

But why not let a bucket of water vaporise by it self? There are plenty of hot days during a year, and you don't need salt immediately.

this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025

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