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Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

archaeologymag.com

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Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#121

Post by sfn42 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #110
sfn42 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common mistake. Just this weekend I followed a recipe from a well known cooking website for beef stroganoff that said to brown the beef in batches together with batches of onion. That's not a good idea, the onion will release liquid which prevents the beef from browning and once that cooks off the heat required to brown the meat will burn the onion. So I cooked the beef and onion separately instead. The onion…

I cook pasta at a rolling boil not because it cooks faster but the agitation of the boiling makes it less likely to form sticky clumps.

I've thought about that but it's not a problem for me. I throw the pasta in, give it a stir, then leave it until the timer rings. Never have any sticky clumps.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#122

Post by hombre_fatal »

thfuran wrote: post #50
poulpy123 wrote: post #48

While the discovery is great, there are quotes that are very clickbaity like "They understood both the nutritional value of fat and how to access it efficiently.” No they didn't understand the nutritional value better than any other homo something before or after, or even any carnivorous animals. It's just that evolution engineered them to look for food everywhere. For example the bearded vulture diet is based on bon…

Neanderthals were certainly smart enough to have more understanding of dietary needs than a vulture does. And "any homo something before or after" includes us today. While it might be reasonable to say there are things we don't fully understand about the way fat affects the body, we do understand the nutritional value of fat.

What more did they know about dietary fat than that it was edible and it would help them survive, the same as any animal?

This just sounds like romanticizing.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#123

Post by recursive »

boringg wrote: post #52
Youden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In high school science class we boiled water using standard printer paper: fold a sheet into a box, put it on a stand over a bunsen burner, fill it with water, turn up the bunsen burner. Not only does it not burn but it retains more of its structural integrity.

With direct flame on it? I guess it was removing water molecules slower than it was absorbing water. As long as it was saturated it would be fine. Great experiment.

In Boy Scouts, we used to boil water with direct flame on paper cups. It would burn the paper "lip" on the bottom, but not leak.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#124

Post by morsch »

germinalphrase wrote: post #81
williamdclt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting somewhat off-topic and maybe it's more evident to other people, but for me understanding this energy transfer was eye-opening for my cooking abilities! Like, my mushrooms aren't going to actually cook as I want as long as they render water because the water is cooling the pan down. Obvious in retrospect, never really fully realised it. Also means I can blast the heat up to get rid of this water faster, it's n…

I’ve heard it said by a very science oriented chef that ‘all cooking is moisture management’.

Dave Arnold?

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#125

Post by germinalphrase »

morsch wrote: post #124
germinalphrase wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard it said by a very science oriented chef that ‘all cooking is moisture management’.

Dave Arnold?

Can’t find it now - but might have been!

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#126

Post by jghn »

williamdclt wrote: post #97
jghn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is also why cooking advice shifted from "don't wash mushrooms" to "wash mushrooms". If you're cooking your mushrooms properly you'll boil off all the water anyways, so it doesn't matter. It's only if you *don't* cook your mushrooms properly that washing mushrooms makes everything more watery than you'd like.

I don’t wash mushroom because that makes them slimy, making them much more annoying to cut (and also it takes more time than not doing it). I can take a little dirt!

I was an avid non-washer until experts like Kenji [1] started weighing in. You definitely have to hold off washing them until the last moment to avoid sliminess. Although I don't find the time added to be all that consequential in the grand scheme of things. Obviously you're correct that it'd be *more* time, however.

[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-clean-and-chop-mushrooms

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#127

Post by heikkilevanto »

willhslade wrote: post #108
Roark66 wrote: post #15

And how could they've done this without language? I've heard this statement that neanderthals were "outcompeted" because homo sapiens had language and they did not (something about the way their anatomy didn't allow for making complex sounds). I call BS on that now. You can't do this kind of stuff without ability to communicate your intentions, future plans, rewards for other people and so on. Next we'll discover the…

I thought the idea was that Homo Sapiens's shoulders were capable of ranged weapons like atl atls while Neanderthals were ambush hunters.

There are many successful ambush hunters in nature. It is not such a bad strategy

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#128

Post by heikkilevanto »

jbotz wrote: post #6

When I first read this a question jumped out at me: Wait, Neanderthals were able to render fat? That requires boiling, and doesn't boiling require pottery? This led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole. It turns out that no, you don't need pottery to boil things, because you can do it just fine in combustible materials like animal hide or birch bark... so long as you keep the water level consistently high enough, because t…

Reminds me of the anecdote of an early fisherman who cast his net, looked at that catch, and concluded that fishes have scales and fins, and are always at least 5cm long.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#129

Post by pests »

BurningFrog wrote: post #98
Youden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In high school science class we boiled water using standard printer paper: fold a sheet into a box, put it on a stand over a bunsen burner, fill it with water, turn up the bunsen burner. Not only does it not burn but it retains more of its structural integrity.

It's a classic survival tip when lost in the wild: Fold your map into a box and cook whatever food-like things you've found before eating. Why you're lost when you have a map is a different question.

Just because you have a map doesn’t mean you know where you are in said map. Reading the landscape and elevation changes around you and matching that to a map is a skill into itself. Even harder without a compass.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#130

Post by pests »

stinos wrote: post #37
jbotz wrote: post #6

When I first read this a question jumped out at me: Wait, Neanderthals were able to render fat? That requires boiling, and doesn't boiling require pottery? This led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole. It turns out that no, you don't need pottery to boil things, because you can do it just fine in combustible materials like animal hide or birch bark... so long as you keep the water level consistently high enough, because t…

Heh, wanted to make a comment saying this isn't 'super' recent knowlegde because I vividly remember Jean M. Auel using it in her first novels written in the 80's, and basically all the technical stuff she wrote was researched, ony to find out [1] indeed opens with a quote from said novels.

I loved those books when I was younger, was randomly thinking about them the other day and couldn’t remember the name for the first book and got lost in Wikipedia
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