History of fruit

This is driving me nuts. I think I was watching an episode of Good Eats not too long ago where they were talking about several different kind of fruit or maybe vegetables that didn’t exist even a couple hundred years ago, but now I can’t remember what they were. Anyone recall?

I know which episode you’re talking about, and I recall it being mostly vegetables. The amount of shit Man has basically engineered into existence is staggering. This is a list of current domesticated plants. Plants here are going to be vastly different than their natural state.

Don’t forget the grapple!

Grapples are awesome.

I do remember one of the key problems with that Kirk Cameron “bananas prove Creationism” video was that the banana as we know it doesn’t remotely resemble what a wild banana actually looks/feels/tastes like.

Inteeesting subject. I think the list Bacon wefers to might be diffewent than the list Euri posted? Bacon if you find out post the wesults,.

Thanks a lot, wikipedia. It turns out I’ve been lying to a lot of people.

WHO ELSE BUT JPINARD?

:theme song:

BRUSSEL SPROUTS!!! First written reference according to Wikipedia was 1587, but it probably existed before then in some form.

My left hand lower arm have swelled to like 2-3x their normal size - I"m guessing from my liver. BUt yea, should be using spellcheck. Nothing like looking like a moron. edit (me, not you) -> srry.

Strawberries are one – and not for a lack of trying, either. It just took forever to domesticate them, to make them into something that humans could get to before the birds ate them all.

Fun fact about almonds: in their natural, non-domesticated state a large percentage of almonds are poisonous to humans. They contain lethal doses of a poisonous chemical… cyanide, I think.

The only thing that humans did to domesticate them was to notice that a few almond trees weren’t poisonous, and then we strictly bred those trees. The almonds we eat now are, basically, naturally occurring “defective” almond trees.

The best part about that? Most culinary bananas are seedless fruit - they can’t even make baby bananas without people. The Cavendish, Kirk’s example, is actually threatened by a nasty disease to which it is totally unable to evolve a resistance to, so we better start looking for a new one.

I am pretty sure I read in The Ominvore’s Dilemma that corn as you know it would never have survived if not for cultivation and development by the first prehistoric 4H club.

Two of the chemicals we used to develop photos in high school would become highly lethal if mixed together. You’d know your mistake when you smelled almonds.

What about when you get a compound fracture in a remote place and it begins to smell like almonds after a few days?

I was all excited about grapples and getting ready to order some when I found out they’re just fuji apples infused with grape flavoring. Knowing it’s not an abomination of nature just takes all the interest away.

Yeah I went out and looked it up also, and had the same reaction. A freakishly mutated apple would be pretty cool; an apple soaked in a vat of grape flavoring, not so much.

WHAT?!

Where’s that receipt?

Yeah, it is given away by the ingredient list, which is “apples, artificial flavor”. And the fact that it tastes like grape soda.

Yeah, but I thought it was the genetic miracle of the grape soda flavor gene, not a damn chemical bath. More like trapples.