>>I don't think the problem was beef, but... well, food intolerances are a mess nowadays, with all of our mixed cuisines and intolerances and awareness of it being an issue. <<
When I was little, food issues were extremely rare. There were old people whose bodies were breaking down, and then there was me, and that was it. In our entire monkeysphere. Now almost everyone has stuff they can't eat. In a few decades, we've either broken food, broken humans, or both. It's appalling. The problem has always existed, but it was never so ubiquitous.
>>People making first contact in the tenth and eleventh centuries probably wouldn't have the concept of food intolerances, and neither group would have known enough to ask. So, I'd bet there was a big gathering, and everyone shared food including some dairy dishes, and only half of the participants got sick, except maybe someone's little kids or elderly parents get /really/ sick. The first thought wouldn't be "Hmmm, let's test for food intolerance," but "You poisoner! I shall have my revenge!" and thereby starting a war.<<
I doubt it. What they had back then was food that was often iffy, so getting sick from food wasn't a huge surprise unless it did something truly bizarre, like ergot poisoning. Plus, people who traveled -- the Vikings and the Turtle Island traders -- would've had experience with other people's food and the fact that "edible" is a matter of opinion. So not the same way we would look at things, but an awareness that sometimes food does things it shouldn't. And unless they were very hungry, they probably wouldn't eat that particular food again.
>>Wonder if anyone's done genetic testing to see if there are beefalo descended from the 11th century cattle...<<
As far as I know, nobody has checked. They've checked whether bison have cow genes and that's it. Most of that has been checking for white Brahma to rule out that as a cause of white buffalo. I haven't heard of anyone checking for date of introduced genes. It would be sensible to check for though.
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dancing_serpent
Thoughts
Date: 2023-02-17 02:19 am (UTC)When I was little, food issues were extremely rare. There were old people whose bodies were breaking down, and then there was me, and that was it. In our entire monkeysphere. Now almost everyone has stuff they can't eat. In a few decades, we've either broken food, broken humans, or both. It's appalling. The problem has always existed, but it was never so ubiquitous.
>>People making first contact in the tenth and eleventh centuries probably wouldn't have the concept of food intolerances, and neither group would have known enough to ask. So, I'd bet there was a big gathering, and everyone shared food including some dairy dishes, and only half of the participants got sick, except maybe someone's little kids or elderly parents get /really/ sick. The first thought wouldn't be "Hmmm, let's test for food intolerance," but "You poisoner! I shall have my revenge!" and thereby starting a war.<<
I doubt it. What they had back then was food that was often iffy, so getting sick from food wasn't a huge surprise unless it did something truly bizarre, like ergot poisoning. Plus, people who traveled -- the Vikings and the Turtle Island traders -- would've had experience with other people's food and the fact that "edible" is a matter of opinion. So not the same way we would look at things, but an awareness that sometimes food does things it shouldn't. And unless they were very hungry, they probably wouldn't eat that particular food again.
>>Wonder if anyone's done genetic testing to see if there are beefalo descended from the 11th century cattle...<<
As far as I know, nobody has checked. They've checked whether bison have cow genes and that's it. Most of that has been checking for white Brahma to rule out that as a cause of white buffalo. I haven't heard of anyone checking for date of introduced genes. It would be sensible to check for though.