On 22 Nov 2001, at 7:46, Thomas Gentles wrote:

> Another reference indicates our ancestors probably used fire for almost 2 million years
> so they would have learned how to treat seeds with heat where that was
> necessary.

Roasting game on a spit is very low tech compared to boiling some
beans.    That is not to say you don't have a point.  Just that more
technology is required to cook legumes to remove antinutrients.
Is pottery 2 million years old?

My guess is tubers arrived earlier since they can be cooked in fire
ashes,  bread can be cooked in a crude clay oven or even on hot
rocks Essene style.   Boiling strikes me as modern except in
geothermal regions where flax baskets were used to lower in foods.

In the case of NZ Maori the food lowered into hot geothermal pools
was mostly eels,  bracken fern root and similar till sweet potato came
with later immigrations.   As far as I know they didn't have a legume
to exploit.

Tutu a native legume is so poisonous small quantifies will kill an
elephant.   Which could explain why there are no elephants in NZ.

<Grin>

Quentin Grady