21st January 2012
Trial and Err-or

Have you ever partaken of a soothing, delicious cup of spice (cinnamon) tea? Bay leaf tea? Cocoa? (I’m using a sample selection of some of our local concoctions, here). Nice, huh? Good stuff? Sure. Now ... what about a delicious cup of breadfruit tree bark tea, manchineel leaf or powdered mango seed tea?
“What the heck are you talking about?” you ask, hardly able to believe your ears, so extreme is the degree of stupidity which you hear coming out of my mouth. “Are you kidding? Any one of those, especially the manchineel stuff, will definitely put your lights out for good - or at least, make you so sick, a dying dog wouldn’t want to trade places with you.” O.K., O.K., I agree with you: no one in his/her right mind would even consider drinking any of the second-named junk I’ve listed, but .. how did we - Mankind, that is - come to know which of the things we should eat or drink, and which ones we should not? And further, even in the domain of the edible stuff, how did we get to know which part of what should be done what to, in order to make it edible?
Like, we make tea with cinnamon bark, but with the leaves of the bay tree, and the seeds of the cocoa plant; not with the leaves of the cinnamon tree, the bark of the bay leaf, or the roots of the cocoa plant, for example. Of course, the answer is self evident: trial and error. Throughout our evolution, there must have been some adventurous guys (actually, turns out it wasn’t always the guys; but we’ll come to that later) who decided to take chances in the effort to discover things like ... what to make beer from, so that they and their friends would have something to wet their whistles on Sunday afternoons while they lounge in front of their TV sets watching the football game.
Think about it: Oog and Ahn, two cavemen friends, are sitting in Oog’s cave, looking at the Lakers game, when Ahn, during a commercial break, looked over at his companion and gave a satisfied grunt.
“Ahh, this is the life, isn’t it?’ he says, “but I get this feeling that something’s missing. I know what it is! I’d enjoy this more if we had something liquid - perhaps something alcoholic, to swill out of a bear’s cranium, while we’re watching this massacre.”
“You know, I believe you’re right,” growls Oog, “but what? Alcohol’s not been invented yet ... won’t be for centuries. I know, let’s go see whether we can’t come up with something. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” as some wise fellow is going to say, fifteen thousand years from now. Suppose we go out and cook up some leaves, or berries, or roots, flowers, fruit, bark, something, and see what effect drinking the water is going to have on us. ’Cause, believe me, I sure could use something smooth and mellow, right about now.”
And the two friends get up and go outside, in search of something special, which would just hit the spot. They gaze out at the vast expanse of vegetation before the front door, with its never-ending variety of plant species.
“Well, where do we start?” inquires Ahn.
“What about that nice yellow-leaved bush over there?” Oog indicates a grove of crotons. “That should produce a nice, golden liquid, with, perhaps, a nice kick to it. Let’s boil up some of those.”
They collect some of the brilliant, golden-yellow croton leaves, put them into a pot hanging over a wood fire, add some water and, half-an-hour later, are pouring off a clear, golden liquid.
“This looks as though it would go down nicely, if only it were ice-cold,” remarks Ahn. “a pity it’s not winter. In any case, let’s give it the old trial-and-error shot. You go first.”