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From: ddyment@ubc-cs.UUCP (Doug Dyment)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Eating flowers--really on food discovery
Message-ID: <1221@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 18:01:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1221
Posted: Fri Aug 16 18:01:17 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 04:55:17 EDT
References: <50@drutx.UUCP> <411@stcvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ddyment@ubc-cs.UUCP (Doug Dyment)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 10
Summary: tapioca story

****
Many years ago (i.e., I forget the source), I read the following story of the
"discovery" of tapioca.  Apparently its poisonous nature was well known to
natives, and when someone (acutally, a white person) was lost in the jungle,
with apparently no hope of rescue, he decided to speed his demise by eating
some of the poisonous root.  In an attempt to make it taste better, he cooked
it first, and voila!, both a new discovery and a foodstuff to support him
during his eventually successful search for civilization.