On 8/4/2016 9:55 AM, Dave Smith wrote:
> On 2016-08-04 2:49 PM, dsi1 wrote:
>> On Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 8:29:09 AM UTC-10, Cindy Hamilton
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> My guess is that the fruits most people get today did not exist a
>> hundred years ago. They are purpose-built for the market conditions
>> of today.
>
> Your guess is pretty close. There are a lot of things that you didn't
> get unless they were produced nearby, especially the more perishable
> fruits. It took too long to transport them and they did not have
> refrigeration. When I was a kid in the 50s we had mostly locally grown
> fruits, and only when they were in season. Oranges were a rare treat.
> Kiwis, mangoes and their ilk.... never heard of them.
>
> Some of the fruits were much different than what we see. In colonial
> times apples were not the tasty eating type we see now. They were more
> commonly used as a sweetener for baking, and the other thing they were
> used for was making cider.... hard cider and apple jack.
>
>

Fruits in the wild did not develop over hundreds of thousand of years to
appeal to the human eye or be tasty to us humanoids. That would not make
much evolutionary sense.

Our papaya industry averted disaster by splicing some virus DNA into the
papaya DNA. This made the fruit resistant to the virus. The fruit is
different from the papaya I grew up with - the funny thing is that it
tastes a lot better. That's rather unexpected.

>
>
> Eggs might be the same as always. The meats of the past
>> would probably be handled in a similar manner as the meats from third
>> world countries. Apicius would think that a chicken McNugget or a
>> bowl noodle would be great eats. He would appreciate these food for
>> what they are i.e., with no preconceived notions. The reality is that
>> foods in the past could very well kill you.
>>
>