Would'nt it be possible to cook seeds (and other foods) , by using them as "stuffing" - in an aimal cooked in an earth pit with hot stones ? If I were a stone-age cook I certainly would experiment with that :-) Esben ----- Original Message ----- From: Thomas Gentles <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2001 11:07 PM Subject: [P-F] yams and sweet potatoes [and seeds] > On Thu, 23 Nov 2001 16:00:09 -0500, Quentin Grady wrote: > > >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? > > A few years ago I checked on the earliest pottery records available. The earliest record I could find was a Japanese record of about 15, 000 years ago. Pottery only came into common use around the world about 13,000 years BCE, as I recollect. I had thought it would have been much earlier. > > Anyway I know water can be boiled in a pit lined with an old animal hide. I do this every year at a demonstration of ancient technology put on by our archaeological society. Just a matter of rolling red hot stones into the pit. > > And I've read that it's possible to boil water in a hide hung over a fire. But anyone I know who's tried this has failed miserably. > > Tom Gentles, > Regina, SK >