How Things Get Started

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Have you ever been sitting there, and you look at something and wonder, "How in the world did they ever come up with this?"
For example, lets take cake. What ever inspired the first person to take flour, eggs, milk, etc and mix em all together and bake em?

 

Well he was probably hungry

But seriously, I really don't like philosophy so I don't think about stuff like that.

 

Yeah... it's just like gravity and cat doors. Gravity was just lying around waiting for discovery, but cat doors? Genius.

(Yes, Adams...)

 

I say it was some aliens. They came down and left the recipe for cakes in the form of some up turned rocks left lying around in the English country side!

 

Ah, but how did the aliens figure it out?

 

Trial and error? Accident? It could be, that's how rubber was discovered.

 

Trees, rubber comes from trees.

 

And I always wondered why Elios was soooo famous.
Right now, im thinking who the hell came up with accounting systems and balance sheets.

 

Shrikanth, you definitely need to get a life.
But, to answer your question, they were started by someone evil so that only those of us trained in the dark art of accounting could understand them. Eventually we will rule the world. BwaaHaaHaaHAAA!!

 

The rumor is that beer was created by accident in Egypt. Apparently someone left bread outside in a container, it rained, fermented...And voila! Beer!

 

I think the key word in all of this is "evolution".

 

Cake is a natural step in the evolution from bread. It's just a different type of leavening.

The one that gets me is opium, or cocaine. Natural drugs like pot I can see, but have you ever read all the processing steps it takes to generate that stuff? That's not something you're going to pick up by watching the local animals get goofy after rolling in a particular patch of flowers.

So what motivates people to experiment - greed for money, or greed for the high?

 

Anybody thought of coffee? I still wonder who came up with that!

-Hey! See these weird fruitlike thingies? There are beans in it! Let's get them out! But watch it... the fruits are slightly poisonous.
Now what shall we do with these black beans? I'd say we roast them! Yeah, that's a good idea? No clue why, but maybe it's a nice step in the unknown process.
Now we have roasted beans. We probably blew it all. I should crush them! Even worse, let's grind them!
Hey wait a sec! Let's put it all in a paper and put boiled water over it. Why? No idea, sounds funny. Darn! look at that, the water is all black. Quickly, get a mug!
Oops, I think I hear mama coming. We should get rid of this stuff before she thinks we are nuts. *drinking hot beverage of roasted and grinded weird beans*
Ma: What are you doing?
-I'm er... drinking... er 'coffee'
Ma: Coffwhat? Your eyes are red and your pupils are enormous, have you been using drugs again?!
-Bweh... Sortoff.

 

Ya, how did I end to university after deciding to go to polytechnic (or, as it should be said now; the university of physics and technology -what a name monster)

 

Speaking of beans, I just say let's bless the person(s) who figured out how to make chocolate. Yum!

 

Actually Rallymama, simple opium is very easy to make. Just lick your fingers after breaking open an unripe seed pod and you're a happy camper. Most opium-poppy farm workers are addicts just from licking their knife clean as they cut pods. Refinement no doubt evolved when someone said, hey, if this is good, imagine if we made it stronger! I know this from trying NOT to get high while harvesting edible opium-poppy seeds from my herb garden, in case anyone was wondering.

As for cakes - it's the foaming of beaten egg, especially the isolated whites, that amaze me. I can never bake a cake or meringue or sabayon without wondering who figured out that eggs would do such a marvellous thing.

 

The Aztecs created chocolate, thank them

 

cake :Maybe that was all the guy had in his cupboards so he thought 'I know, I'll mix it all together and make a tasty supper

 

It was like with... I don't know... let's say: SPAM! Someone simply had too much time on his hands