274.366 - 2016 project and recipes

every day in 2016, write a sentence or a paragraph or a poem that appreciates

recipes

have you ever imagined where recipes came from?  how did we ever come up with digging up roots, skinning them, and boiling them?  how did we ever come up with a pot to boil them in?  how did we think of baking them?  of cutting them into slenders and frying them?  all the things hanging open and loose - mangoes, tomatoes, peaches - they were easy.  the birds led us to them, or our own curiosity.  little kids put anything in their mouths.  but who thought of rice?  how to grow it, harvest it, dry it, cook it?  but it's not so much who thought of rutabaga, arugula, spinach, and onion, but who thought to cut them up, mix them, and call it a salad?  who added the vinaigrette?  did our maxi-multi-great grandmothers ploddingly think of one ingredient at a time?  or did some terrible woman come up with the whole thing all at once and go nuts with all the food ideas bursting in her head?  did the men come home and stand in awe of the crazy woman, obviously touched by the gods, and infecting the women around her?  did they tie her up and hang her spread out in a cross-position over the door of the cave?  were they so worked up with their collective macho that they ran off to a ten-day hunt?  did the women cower around her, listening to the sparkling wisdom still pouring from her, til they grabbed charcoal and leaves or skins and invented writing so they could record all the wonderful ideas from the crucified woman?  did the hunters come back from their hunt, expecting to be feted and honored for their achievements, only to find the cave piled high with stacks of skins and leaves and find their women busy trying recipes?  "here, taste this!"  or "ooo!  come here!  smell!  taste!"  did the black-and-white that they'd lived in for decades suddenly turn into Technicolor?  did the men suddenly feel picayune, standing there with their piles of meat, while the women experimented with sauces and roux and breads?  did the men get all shifty-eyed about how they'd treated the terrible first cook?  Did they go outside to cut her down?  did they discover they were too late, that the crows and lizards and bugs had all feasted?  do their descendants still live with the guilt of what the first men did to the first cook?  is that why women treasure recipes?