Isn't it Amazing?

     I have to admit, I started thinking about food, for no particular reason.  Imagine all the years of civilizations and human beings deciding what was safe to eat, or to combine and eat.
     One of the stories I tell at O'Keefe Ranch is the story of civet cat coffee or kopi luwak.  I watched "The Bucket List" recently, and it is mentioned in this movie as well.  But just think about the first desperate coffee addict, denied access to the coffee that he picked, who took the civet cat dung home, separated out the coffee beans, and prepared some coffee.  Desperate times.
     Whoever thought of putting garlic butter on snails?  Was it a dare?
     And think of all the people who ate the "wrong" kind of mushrooms.  Mind you, the first person to eat mushrooms must have been pretty brave.
     Of course, many of these ancestral daredevils must have been observing the animals around them to find out what was safe to eat.  But when you think of the combinations of foods and spices that our modern chefs put together ... well, what animals are eating habanero peppers?  (Animals with no tastebuds!)
     Imagine the first chocolate cake ... or the first ice cream ...
     I am making myself hungry again ... I can do that when I do school tours at O'Keefe Ranch and demonstrate the waffle iron on the wood stove in the General Store or describe how to make ice cream in the hand-cranked ice cream churn ... I can almost convince myself that when I open the waffle iron, there will be waffles inside.  (Considering that the waffle iron is on a cold stove, that really would be a feat -- especially since I only mime pouring the batter in).
     I appear to be suffering from an overdose of imagination.  Time for a bedtime snack.