Jack and the Beanstalk

[Boreades]

Beans are still held sacred at Chateau Boreades.
As in: "Jeeez, it's been so wet this summer it's a chuffing miracle anything grew. Thank God for the beans."

Did Pythagoreans regard beans as sacred?
Some say Pythagoreans banned their consumption on health grounds, because some people found them poisonous.

http://users.ucom.net/~vegan/beans.htm

[hvered]

Would fermented beans be poisonous? Dry beans were used as counters which is probably why they loom large in rite-of-passage stuff as a useful currency to pay for passage in the real world. If immersed in water they germinate after three days apparently which may well be considered quite magical.

[Boreades]

Would fermented beans be poisonous?

Might depend how long they'd been fermenting.

Kidney beans (for example) - in their raw state, they do contain toxins that make them unsuitable for consumption. Eating raw or inadequately cooked beans can lead to symptoms that indicate food poisoning. Vomiting and diarrhoea may occur two to three hours after consumption.

Maybe why the Mexican habit is to refry them, to make double-sure the toxins have been cooked out?

But which kind of beans were the most common in Pythagorean times?

[spiral]

Would fermented beans be poisonous? Dry beans were used as counters which is probably why they loom large in rite-of-passage stuff as a useful currency to pay for passage in the real world. If immersed in water they germinate after three days apparently which may well be considered quite magical.

I like this. The link between counters and currency and gambler Jack. The beans had of course, exchange value, they were thought valueless but........

[Boreades]

I'm still wondering which kind of beans were poisoning the Pythagorean people.

[Boreades]

Did the Iron Age Brits have beans?

I would willingly nip up to this event in Cirencester and find out:

Iron Age and Roman Food in Britain
Lisa Lodwick
Thursday 7 May, 2.30-3.30pm
Lisa will explore
 how plant remains 
are recovered from archaeological sites, 
and how these can tell us about the crops, fruits and flavourings used in Iron Age and Roman Britain. Tour the galleries with Lisa to identify plant foods on display.
Cost: £6 or £5 for season ticket holders

Booking essential

http://coriniummuseum.org/2015/04/16/fo ... thought-2/

Except it's on a Thursday afternoon, which is no good to any of us idiots still cursed by a Fulltime Day Job.
What kind of people do they expect to get at these events?
Unemployed/OAP?

They are also organising a few other savoury events, like this:

Toilets, sewers and cess pits: the other side of the food story
Zena Kamash
Monday 25 May, 11-12pm

What happens to 
food after it is eaten? How does it become archaeology? This talk will use the displays to think about the other side of the food story and to explore what going to the toilet can tell us about people in the past.

https://coriniummuseum.files.wordpress. ... poster.jpg

But the event that might be the most appropriate for all our TME experts on elevated micturition in a beverage-production facility is this one:

Bacchus in Britain and Beyond
Wine Tasting Evening
Zena Kamash &
Tom I’Anson
Friday 19 June, 7-9pm

Zena will introduce 
the evening discussing Bacchus in art and highlight objects on display within the “Food for Thought” exhibition and the museum. This will be followed by wine tasting with local expert Tom I’Anson.

Please form a disorderly queue. Cheers!

[hvered]

I'm still wondering which kind of beans were poisoning the Pythagorean people.

Strangely, in view of the Pauline discussion on the AEL site, bean in Hebrew is 'pol'. The Egyptian word is 'ful', p and f being the same letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

[TisILeclerc]

'I'm still wondering which kind of beans were poisoning the Pythagorean people.'

Didn't Pythagoras discover 57 varieties that may have been to blame?

[Boreades]

Considering tomatoes were once considered poisonous (because they reacted with pewter), beans in tomato sauce might once have been even more deadly than we imagine.

[TisILeclerc]

They still are.

I've been on the baked bean diet for a week. Not for the faint hearted.

I thought tomatoes were considered poisonous because they are related to potatoes and potatoes get little tomato like berries on them which I believe are poisonous, as are potatoes if not cooked. So I've been told.