Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be kicking off the
Speaker 1: first of a two part series where we're going to
Speaker 1: be looking at one of my favorite things in nature,
Speaker 1: the bean. Uh you might say the humble being a
Speaker 1: child chanting in the playground might say the magical fruit,
Speaker 1: or wait, was it the magical fruit of the musical fruit.
Speaker 1: I think both variations are valid, and my own musical
Speaker 1: I've heard you're probably you're you're probably combining the idea
Speaker 1: in your head with the idea of magic beans, which
Speaker 1: of course are sometimes sold to unspecting fairytale characters. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack and the bean Stalk. There. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: thing about the magic beans and the Jack and the
Speaker 1: bean Stalk legend that I wonder about. I wonder if
Speaker 1: the beans have more significance than just being you know,
Speaker 1: magic anything that he could have planted in the ground.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, of course it is biologically significant
Speaker 1: that their seeds, right, so they go in the ground
Speaker 1: and they grow up a vine or a stalk or something.
Speaker 1: But there's an interesting thing that I was becoming more
Speaker 1: and more aware of, uh as I was reading a
Speaker 1: book about beans that we'll talk about in this first
Speaker 1: part today, which is that historically and a lot of cultures,
Speaker 1: beans have associations with with poverty or with like sort
Speaker 1: of rustic or regular life. Whereas like the elites of
Speaker 1: a society might have more access to meet to get
Speaker 1: their protein, regular people to get protein, they get a
Speaker 1: lot of that protein from beans. So beans are often
Speaker 1: associated with being working class or in the case of
Speaker 1: the Jack and the bean Stalk story, being somebody who's
Speaker 1: you know, just struggling to get along with regular life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing that came out of of my part of
Speaker 1: the research here was that on one level beans, beans
Speaker 1: are kind of boring. Beans are I mean, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, beans are, But I mean from a culinary standpoint,
Speaker 1: beans are exciting. I love beans. I think that you
Speaker 1: and I both, I think are both fans of Rancho
Speaker 1: Gordo beans free plug there. Um. So, so beans, beans
Speaker 1: are wonderful. But but yeah, I think beans don't always
Speaker 1: have the most exciting place in various mythologies and stories
Speaker 1: because they do have this association with the common man.
Speaker 1: They have this association with um uh with sometimes the
Speaker 1: lower tiers of society in in a given culture, at
Speaker 1: least until the the upper um uh levels of society
Speaker 1: then rediscover it and and start getting curious about what
Speaker 1: the lower levels of society are cooking. Um So at
Speaker 1: times it feels like you they don't get the respect
Speaker 1: that they deserve in terms of our our myth making
Speaker 1: and our story making. Like, I think that's probably the
Speaker 1: reason that that we have this idea of the magic
Speaker 1: being right, because it seems like a stupid thing to buy.
Speaker 1: Why would you buy a magic being? A bean? Can't
Speaker 1: be magic? Beans a bean? And yet if we did
Speaker 1: not have beans, just imagine the state we would be in. Like,
Speaker 1: beans are vitally important for feeding the planet. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: absolutely right. And one of the things I want to
Speaker 1: talk about today is how that's not only true in
Speaker 1: the modern era, but is is true in a historical sense.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of different places at least I
Speaker 1: want to talk about where beans play probably a pivotal
Speaker 1: role in in leading to humanity as it is today.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in the Jack and the Beanstalk story, I
Speaker 1: kind of wonder if getting a bag of magic beans
Speaker 1: is like, you know, it's just like an extremely common
Speaker 1: and not special food item. It's like getting a bag
Speaker 1: of magical bugles. But actually, I think it turns out
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of interest in beings strange ideas
Speaker 1: that people have, where people have connected the concepts of
Speaker 1: beans to two souls and magical beliefs and UH and
Speaker 1: what a bean's relationship to meet is, as well as
Speaker 1: the being relationship to our evolutionary history and UH and
Speaker 1: early human civilization. And so we'll be exploring these things
Speaker 1: as we go on, but I want to start off
Speaker 1: today by looking at beans in early human civilization. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, beans are seeds biologically, that that is the
Speaker 1: role they play in a plant. There their seeds, and
Speaker 1: the seeds that we call beans come from a family
Speaker 1: of flowering plants called fabaci. That's spelled F A B
Speaker 1: A C E A E, which is one of those fun,
Speaker 1: you know, Latin things to say. But one of the
Speaker 1: main characteristics of these plants is that they have these
Speaker 1: distinctive pods which contain their seeds. And the seeds, of
Speaker 1: course are the beans we know. Now, there are different
Speaker 1: genera of beans that that that sort of feed into
Speaker 1: the different culinary traditions around the world. You've got the
Speaker 1: fava beans. You've got the genus Faziola's, which is the
Speaker 1: sort of progenitor of many of the common beans we
Speaker 1: know today, like pinto beans and stuff. All come from
Speaker 1: that family. Of course, you have soybeans, you have lentils, Yes,
Speaker 1: lentils are beans, and all these different beings have played
Speaker 1: important roles in the sort of nutritional package that has
Speaker 1: been developed along with different cultures of the world over
Speaker 1: the past few thousands of years. I was reading about
Speaker 1: this in a book that an e book that I
Speaker 1: downloaded called Beans a History by an author named Ken
Speaker 1: Albala or Albala A L. B. A. L A from
Speaker 1: Bloomsbury Publishing in and This author, Ken Albola, is a
Speaker 1: history professor at the University of the Pacific. It seems
Speaker 1: like he has written a lot of books about the
Speaker 1: history of food, and in this book he goes into
Speaker 1: a lot of depth about the often overlooked role of
Speaker 1: beans in the history of the human species. For example,
Speaker 1: we've spoken at length before about the importance of the
Speaker 1: domestication of grain crops, leading to the rise of the
Speaker 1: first settled civilizations. But in that context, I don't think
Speaker 1: we ever really discussed the role of beings. Uh, the
Speaker 1: role of beings such as lentils, and Albala makes a
Speaker 1: lot of this. He has a whole chapter on the
Speaker 1: domestication of wild lentils and argues that they played an
Speaker 1: extremely important role in the nutritional foundation of human civilization.
Speaker 1: So I just want to read a selection from from
Speaker 1: one of his early chapters that gets into this. Albala writes, quote,
Speaker 1: the story of what is called the Neolithic Revolution has
Speaker 1: been told many times. The crucial role of wheat, goats,
Speaker 1: and sheep is always emphasized. Legumes, not just lentils, but chickpeas, vetches,
Speaker 1: and later pas somehow gets short shrift, but it is
Speaker 1: likely they play as great or even a greater role
Speaker 1: than meat and dairy in supplying protein to the growing population.
Speaker 1: This is a simple matter of efficiency. Per acre, lentils
Speaker 1: provide more calories than grazing cattle. Just as important, Rhizobium bacteria,
Speaker 1: which thrive on the root nodules of legumes, draw nitrogen
Speaker 1: from the atmosphere and fix it in the soil. They
Speaker 1: provide a kind of natural fertilizer, which would have in
Speaker 1: turn made the wheat grow better. Furthermore, the stems and
Speaker 1: husks of the plant can be fed to cattle, which
Speaker 1: of course in turn provides more fertilizer. As in many
Speaker 1: early agricultural societies, the combination of plants works synergistically in
Speaker 1: the soil, and so does the combination of starches and
Speaker 1: legumes in the human diet. The amino acids lacking in
Speaker 1: lintels are supplied by grains, and the lysne missing from
Speaker 1: the grains is supplied by the legumes. That is, a
Speaker 1: person can subsist mainly on this vegetable based diet and
Speaker 1: it will support a large population in a way that
Speaker 1: gathering and hunting cannot. Without the beans, it is certainly
Speaker 1: less likely that these early civilizations would ever have arisen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's that really summarizes it well. I think this
Speaker 1: idea especially that that may be hard for for I
Speaker 1: don't guess some folks too to understand in the modern era,
Speaker 1: when you when you look at our it's you know,
Speaker 1: the modern love of meat, and and often this idea
Speaker 1: that meat is something that you're going to consume not
Speaker 1: just every day, but like three times a day, you know,
Speaker 1: meat for breakfast, meat for lunch, meat for dinner. Um,
Speaker 1: when this is meat tea in the afternoon. Yeah, um yeah,
Speaker 1: the meat, coffee, etcetera. Um. But this was not this
Speaker 1: is certainly not always something that that was that could
Speaker 1: be obtained. I mean and uh and and and certainly
Speaker 1: you would have to have ways to fill that that
Speaker 1: protein gap in your diet. And and that's where beans
Speaker 1: come in. I mean, I think anyone who's work to
Speaker 1: limit the amount of meat in your diet, you you
Speaker 1: quickly realize how important beans are. Um, like my my, uh,
Speaker 1: my son, uh, you know, decided pretty pretty early on
Speaker 1: that he didn't you know, he basically wanted to be
Speaker 1: a pesketarian or a vegetarian. But for a little while
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm not sure I'm that into beans.
Speaker 1: Then we're like, well, we got news for you. If
Speaker 1: you're if if you're gonna you know, be a pescetarian
Speaker 1: or a vegetarian. Uh, you need to love the being.
Speaker 1: You need to to realize how great beans are. And
Speaker 1: uh and and understanding like they're varied ways to consume beans.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think it's a coincidence that a
Speaker 1: lot of the greatest being dishes come from culinary traditions
Speaker 1: that have less emphasis on meat than than some other ones.
Speaker 1: Like uh, I think you know how how well lentils
Speaker 1: are used in so much Indian cuisine, Like I love
Speaker 1: Indian lentils. Yeah, I feel like if you take take
Speaker 1: any culinary tradition and you and you look at how
Speaker 1: they're preparing beans, you're you're gonna find some treasures in
Speaker 1: there as long as you dig deeply enough, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's um because yeah, there's just there's just such
Speaker 1: a long tradition of utilizing them and figuring out the
Speaker 1: ways to maximize their their flavor. You know. Another way
Speaker 1: that beans are real maximizer type food is in efficiency maximization.
Speaker 1: Not just in terms of calories per acre of arable land,
Speaker 1: which elbow It talked about in that section we just discussed.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's more calorie density and growing a
Speaker 1: field of beans than in grazing cattle on that same
Speaker 1: amount of area. But also beans can be dried and
Speaker 1: stored in a state that is essentially indestructible. And this
Speaker 1: is another thing that I think people who have access
Speaker 1: to modern preservation canning, refrigeration, freezers, things like this might
Speaker 1: not appreciate about how important it was in the ancient
Speaker 1: world to have food stocks that would last you through
Speaker 1: the winter at the time when the harvest was not
Speaker 1: going on, you know, when when access to new fresh
Speaker 1: foods was was down to a minimum or down to nothing.
Speaker 1: You had to have something to live off of. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, this comes into food traditions in
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways. Comes in with like pickling
Speaker 1: and fermentation and that kind of stuff. But also beans
Speaker 1: are an amazing protein source because they can be dried,
Speaker 1: and you can move them around, you can store them
Speaker 1: through the winter or even across multiple seasons. Uh that
Speaker 1: that it's an indispensable resource for that reason. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so it's really it's really kind of a shame that
Speaker 1: I think, you know, particularly in American culinary history, at
Speaker 1: least of the last I mean, I guess we're getting
Speaker 1: out of it to to to a fair degree. But
Speaker 1: for a while, there was this idea like beans were
Speaker 1: a side item and that's all beans were. But but
Speaker 1: beans are ultimately bigger than that. They're they're not just
Speaker 1: the little you know, black or brown or white puddle
Speaker 1: next to your meat. You know, they're the thing that
Speaker 1: that that can can more than dominate the plate when
Speaker 1: the meat is not available or the meat is is
Speaker 1: just not utilized in the household. Think it helps to
Speaker 1: sort of lure people into being appreciation by giving them
Speaker 1: a little slightly more decadent versions of beings, like the
Speaker 1: examples I'm thinking of our our falafel, which of course
Speaker 1: is being based that's based on chickpeas mashed up with
Speaker 1: certain spices and other ingredients. But then you deep fry it,
Speaker 1: of course, so it's gonna be nice and crunchy and
Speaker 1: all that on the outside. Or another example I was
Speaker 1: thinking of is I mean, it is hard to beat
Speaker 1: the sort of decadent luxury of some refried beans, which
Speaker 1: are actually in many ways much like the mashed potatoes
Speaker 1: that Americans love on American Thanksgiving and stuff, where you know,
Speaker 1: the primary way of making these is you're gonna be
Speaker 1: mashing up this starchy thing with a bunch of fat.
Speaker 1: In the case of refried beans, it might be lard
Speaker 1: or it might be oil, kind of like the butter
Speaker 1: that you would mix up with your classic mashed potatoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would absolutely agree with that I mean you can
Speaker 1: also say the same for a lot of being based
Speaker 1: imitation meats. You know that sometimes some of these in
Speaker 1: particular not and they're not health food exactly, but they're
Speaker 1: they're really good. Is as long as you're not hanging
Speaker 1: too much on the meat Moniker in some cases. But
Speaker 1: I think some of the invitation meat today is it's
Speaker 1: gotten extremely good. I mean it's it's to the point
Speaker 1: where I feel like someone would have a hard time guessing, um,
Speaker 1: you know what's real and what is imitation. Um. But
Speaker 1: but I think the same goes for like for for tofu,
Speaker 1: for like soft tofu. Uh, you just present soft tofu
Speaker 1: playing to somebody and um, it might not win them over.
Speaker 1: But cut it up into cubes, um, fry it up
Speaker 1: with a pair of extra long chopsticks like I like
Speaker 1: to do. Uh, put a copious amount of salt and
Speaker 1: pepper on those, and I feel like that should satisfy
Speaker 1: most appetites because you've got your your crunchy, you're soft
Speaker 1: in the middle, you're salty, maybe a little bit of
Speaker 1: spice to it if you put something else on it.
Speaker 1: You know, I think anybody who's like a big fan
Speaker 1: of like rich big flavor, meaty stews and all that
Speaker 1: give them some mapo tofu. I mean, you can't turn
Speaker 1: it down. It's amazing than than But actually I want
Speaker 1: to go deeper into history. So that's the role that
Speaker 1: all Bula argues that beans played in the history of
Speaker 1: human civilization. I want to go farther back. Because I
Speaker 1: was reading about something I thought was very interesting. I
Speaker 1: came across this in a New York Times article from
Speaker 1: October of twenty nineteen by Nicholas st. Fleur called Colorado
Speaker 1: Fossils show how mammals race to fill dinosaurs void. And
Speaker 1: this article was covering a fossil fine from Colorado from
Speaker 1: a place called Originally I think I was calling it
Speaker 1: Coral Bluffs, but I believe it's Corral Bluffs. CEO r
Speaker 1: R A L. That's Corral. Is that the word Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: my cowboy bona few days are not strong, but but
Speaker 1: I think that is what that is, which, anyway, are
Speaker 1: discussed in a paper that was published in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: in the journal sig Ants by License at All called
Speaker 1: Exceptional Continental Record of Biotic Recovery after the Cretaceous Paleogene
Speaker 1: mass Extinction. Now that extinction event reference there the Cretaceous
Speaker 1: Paleogene mass extinction. We we also sometimes shorten that to
Speaker 1: the KPg extinction. UM was a mass extinction roughly sixty
Speaker 1: six million years ago, probably caused in large part by
Speaker 1: a giant impact from space. The leading hypothesis is that
Speaker 1: that was driven by this impact that left what's today
Speaker 1: the cheek Chaloub Crater in the Yucatan Peninsula. And this
Speaker 1: mass extinction, you know, we've talked about many times on
Speaker 1: the show before. It was, of course not the greatest
Speaker 1: mass extinction in Earth's history, but one of the greatest.
Speaker 1: It led to the extinction of the non avian dinosaurs
Speaker 1: and more broadly, roughly three quarters of the species on Earth.
Speaker 1: But of course this event is not just relevant to
Speaker 1: the dinosaurs who died in it, but it's highly relevant
Speaker 1: to us because in the equal logical void left when
Speaker 1: dinosaurs were wiped out, suddenly there was a lot of room.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of room for another order of
Speaker 1: terrestrial animals to take over the space evacuated by the
Speaker 1: dead dinosaurs. Of course, that was the mammals, our ancestors. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we've talked before about some of the interesting biological
Speaker 1: dynamics that were in play during this time. One of
Speaker 1: the things I remember us talking about was the role
Speaker 1: of fungus in allowing mammals to ascend during this period.
Speaker 1: I think this was covered in our episode on prototaxids.
Speaker 1: These giant uh these giants potentially fungus, you know, stalks
Speaker 1: that would have been found hundreds of millions of years ago. Um.
Speaker 1: I remember us talking about a CBC documentary that was
Speaker 1: discussing how in the wake of the KPg extinction event, So,
Speaker 1: of course, the space impact would kick up tons of
Speaker 1: dust into the atmosphere that would darken the skies, and
Speaker 1: this would lead to tons tons of dead, decaying plant
Speaker 1: matter under this darkened sky. And so in this world
Speaker 1: of sort of darkened skies and dead decaying plant matter,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect invitation for fungi to thrive. And
Speaker 1: of course all of this fungus around would represent a
Speaker 1: threat to the survival of some of the remaining animals,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't affect all animals equally, because suddenly our
Speaker 1: mammalian ancestors, by having warm blooded bodies, would have much
Speaker 1: better protection against fungal infections than cold blooded animals such
Speaker 1: as the then dominant reptiles. It's a this this world
Speaker 1: is is interesting to try and imagine. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a so again, it's a world of of of rot
Speaker 1: and decay and fungus. It's a world of of of
Speaker 1: rats on the ascent, uh it um. I'm tempted to
Speaker 1: compare it to the in in the the Warhammer fantasy setting.
Speaker 1: There's this chaos god that's the named Nergal, which I
Speaker 1: guess is you know, derived from Nergal, the the ancient
Speaker 1: deity that we've discussed recently on the Yeah. And but anyway,
Speaker 1: this chaos god is a god of of decay and
Speaker 1: uh and disease. But but often more often than not,
Speaker 1: the symbology is that of decay and mushrooms and fungus. Uh.
Speaker 1: But then also occasionally these hordes of of of rats,
Speaker 1: like bipedal rats with with blades and such. So uh,
Speaker 1: this would be a fitting time for for fans of
Speaker 1: of that faction. I think, I don't know about sword
Speaker 1: wielding rats be a time of orman. But but but
Speaker 1: they're on the move, they're on the ascent, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's it's almost like the modern idea of rats
Speaker 1: taking up weapons and and and gaining our spot in
Speaker 1: the world. And I mean that's basically what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Like these these small, in many ways pitiful organisms, when
Speaker 1: you compare them to the previous lords of the earth. Uh,
Speaker 1: they have this chance to rise up and take their spot,
Speaker 1: and they do. And we are we are the descendants
Speaker 1: of that that revolution. Yeah, because of this adaptation of
Speaker 1: having warm blooded bodies that would help fight off fungal infection.
Speaker 1: Like I actually found a quote that we featured in
Speaker 1: that previous episode that was from Arturo casad Devol, who
Speaker 1: is a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University,
Speaker 1: who said, quote, the reptiles are quite susceptible to fungal diseases.
Speaker 1: But your typical mammal, which maintains a temperature in the
Speaker 1: mid thirties or so, that would be celsius, creates a
Speaker 1: thermal exclusionary zone for fungi. So we have like the
Speaker 1: invisible armor. It's not a shell on the outside, it's
Speaker 1: not scales. We've got heat armor. But anyway, so this
Speaker 1: time that spelled doom or at least a suppression for
Speaker 1: many reptile or cold blooded species, gave gave an opportunity
Speaker 1: for mammals to really thrive. And so that's one way
Speaker 1: that the wake of the KPg extinction was a pivotal
Speaker 1: time for mammal ascendency. There were just suddenly all these opportunities.
Speaker 1: So some of these things would be opportunities for new
Speaker 1: ecological niches, new ways to get food that previously were
Speaker 1: monopolized by you know, better competitive species in the dinosaur clade.
Speaker 1: And it would be new habitats to explore and things
Speaker 1: like that. Also, no more dinosaurs eating you all the time,
Speaker 1: that's a plus. I was actually reading a Reuter's article
Speaker 1: by a writer named Will Dunham about the same research
Speaker 1: from the journal Science in twenty nineteen, and it's talking
Speaker 1: about the how mammals got bigger after the KPg extinction,
Speaker 1: and so talking about mammals, Dunham rights quote, within seven
Speaker 1: hundred thousand years of the mass extinction, their body mass
Speaker 1: had become one hundred times bigger than the mammals living
Speaker 1: immediately after the mass extinction, and so charting the increase
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing. Uh. To to read another section from
Speaker 1: the article here from Reuter's here quote the mammals that
Speaker 1: survived the asteroid were mainly small omnivores the largest being
Speaker 1: the size of a rat and weighing about a pound
Speaker 1: or about half a kilogram. So here again we got
Speaker 1: rat world, right is you know, it's fungus all over
Speaker 1: the place, mold rat world, that kind of thing. Dead
Speaker 1: dinosaurs and then um. Within a hundred thousand years of
Speaker 1: the extinction event, mammals reached about thirteen pounds or six kilograms.
Speaker 1: By three hundred thousand years after the extinction, they got
Speaker 1: to fifty five pounds or twenty five rams with the
Speaker 1: first purely herbivorous mammalian species. By seven hundred thousand years
Speaker 1: after the asteroid, some mammals weighed more than a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten pounds or fifty kilograms. So this is talking
Speaker 1: about how like, you know, within like less than a
Speaker 1: million years, you've got mammals growing from from rat size
Speaker 1: to like wolf size. Yeah, I mean again swords and
Speaker 1: cloaks aside. It sounds like yeah, uh so it's because
Speaker 1: of this extinction that we exist. This is an important
Speaker 1: thing to remember, Like we are the descendants of these mammals.
Speaker 1: At some point our ancestor you go back through your
Speaker 1: parents and way way down the line we trace back
Speaker 1: to some kind of rat like creature that survived the
Speaker 1: KPg extinction. But one of the interesting things is that
Speaker 1: scientists don't have a whole lot of fossils from the
Speaker 1: time right after this mass extinction, at least not as
Speaker 1: many fossils as they would like to get a fully
Speaker 1: fleshed out picture of how the mammal world recovered after
Speaker 1: this event. And so this New York Times article in
Speaker 1: the Reuter's article that I've been talking about, or about,
Speaker 1: this paper from Science about a fossil cash discovered in
Speaker 1: Colorado that gives us more insight into the ecology and
Speaker 1: local mammal life from right after that time. It catalogs
Speaker 1: a bunch of different mammal species that are all kind
Speaker 1: of interesting, some growing to the size of like a
Speaker 1: like a prehistoric copy Bara. But one of the interesting
Speaker 1: things about this record is how it connects to the
Speaker 1: subject of beans, because this fossil site also can tell
Speaker 1: us a lot about what was going on with plants
Speaker 1: right around the same time and the stages in which
Speaker 1: plants recovered after the Great Dyeing sixty six million years ago.
Speaker 1: So I want to read a section here from the
Speaker 1: New York Times article by st. Fleur that the catalogs
Speaker 1: this progression of plants. So you've got the mass extinction,
Speaker 1: and then quote first came the ferns with their feather
Speaker 1: like leaves. They proliferated across the waste land for many
Speaker 1: hundreds of years to a couple of thousand years, paving
Speaker 1: the way for forests to rebound. Next, the palms paraded
Speaker 1: in dominating the green scene for hundreds of thousands of years.
Speaker 1: Then around three hundred thousand years after the catastrophe, a
Speaker 1: diverse array of walnuts appeared That coincided with the jump
Speaker 1: in diversity and body size of herbivorous mammals, which suggests
Speaker 1: they were an important food source. We call that world
Speaker 1: the pecan pie world, said Ian Miller, a paleobotanist at
Speaker 1: the Denver Museum of Natural Science. He added that this
Speaker 1: epic also coincided with a warming period in the fossil record,
Speaker 1: which could indicate that a shifting climate played a role
Speaker 1: in the development of plants and animals following the extinction event.
Speaker 1: But then it gets to another interesting plant development after
Speaker 1: this discovery the world's first known bean pod. So now
Speaker 1: I want to read a sections from this article published
Speaker 1: in Science. This again is by license at all and
Speaker 1: the authors here right quote. The Corral Bluff section provides
Speaker 1: the oldest known occurrence of the legumento say or being
Speaker 1: family represented by fossil seed pods and leaflets, stated sixty
Speaker 1: five point three five million years ago. The oldest previously
Speaker 1: recognized legume is based on wood and leaflets from early
Speaker 1: Paleocene rocks of Argentina, whereas the earliest legumes seed pods
Speaker 1: are not recognized until the late Paleo scene roughly fifty
Speaker 1: eight million years ago of Columbia. Our discovery supports a
Speaker 1: nearly synchronous first appearance of legumes in North America and
Speaker 1: southern South America, a rapid diversification for the group in
Speaker 1: the earliest paleo scene, and their apparent origin nation in
Speaker 1: the Western Hemisphere. So to summarize they found this bean pod,
Speaker 1: I think actually they talked about how um the record
Speaker 1: of this bean pod was discovered by a high school
Speaker 1: student who was helping excavate the site. And I believe
Speaker 1: there's a documentary that you can find that PBS did
Speaker 1: about this fossil record discovery, and that might get into
Speaker 1: more detail about the discovery process. But this bean ancestor
Speaker 1: was dated to something like seven hundred thousand years after
Speaker 1: the mass extinction event, and it was also timed in
Speaker 1: synchronization with this warming pulse in the Earth's atmosphere as
Speaker 1: well as, as we pointed out earlier, to the appearance
Speaker 1: of wolf sized mammals. So the authors here suggest that, well,
Speaker 1: maybe these beans were helping to provide calorie dents food
Speaker 1: sources to these mammals as they're getting bigger. This is
Speaker 1: not known for sure, but this seems like a quite
Speaker 1: reasonable hypothesis to be explored more. Uh Dr Miller, who
Speaker 1: I quoted earlier, said quote, we liken them to the
Speaker 1: protein bars of the ancient world. So the appearance of
Speaker 1: these first beans, this bean pot ancestor, appears to be
Speaker 1: time to a sudden shift upward in mammalian body mass.
Speaker 1: And this makes it look at least possible and worthy
Speaker 1: of further explanation that protein rich beans were a nutritional
Speaker 1: driver for mammal ascendency. So beans were the protein bars,
Speaker 1: and then these various mammals they were the lift They
Speaker 1: were the power lifters, they were they were the ones
Speaker 1: putting on mass. Okay, well, at least potentially what right, Well,
Speaker 1: what we've established so far is just this interesting correlation
Speaker 1: in the appearance of the of these species. We don't
Speaker 1: know for sure that like what was eating what? But uh,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it definitely seems worth looking into more because
Speaker 1: you know, as I think I've established by this point,
Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of being propaganda whatever whatever makes
Speaker 1: beans look good. None. Next year, I did have a
Speaker 1: section about beans and flatulence, but I'm actually thinking maybe
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save that for part two. Yeah, maybe we
Speaker 1: can hold that and uh and release it in the
Speaker 1: next episode. I think that's a good idea. So I
Speaker 1: think I'm just gonna clench down and see if we
Speaker 1: we can save that for the next one, give you
Speaker 1: incentive to return. But next time we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about all kinds of crazy being stuff, beans and souls,
Speaker 1: beans and farts. It's going to be it'll be a blast,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But wait, we're not done yet. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: We've got We've got more stuff to discuss here, more
Speaker 1: early early being history. Um are our attempts to understand
Speaker 1: early being history. And uh, I think a little bit
Speaker 1: of magic and mythology related to beans. So as usual
Speaker 1: for for all things ancient, one of my first stops
Speaker 1: in looking at this topic was to start flipping around
Speaker 1: in the seventy grade Inventions of the Ancient World. That's
Speaker 1: the book by anthropologist Brian and Fagan. But the different
Speaker 1: sections of it, UH he'll work with with other experts,
Speaker 1: and in in the section dealing with ancient cereal crops,
Speaker 1: he worked with Stephen Mithin, professor of prehistory at the
Speaker 1: University of Reading. And this mostly UH mostly focused and
Speaker 1: focused on various cereal crops. But there's a really good
Speaker 1: part of this that deals with um with the domestication
Speaker 1: of beans and other plants in the America's and they
Speaker 1: point out that there there seemed to have been two
Speaker 1: centers of plant domestication in the America's. First of all,
Speaker 1: there is the There was the the Andes, and this
Speaker 1: would have focused mostly on keenoa but also on the potato.
Speaker 1: And then in Central Mexico you have that trifecta of
Speaker 1: maize or corn, beans and squash. Now, in both of
Speaker 1: these cases the domestications were undertaken by unsettled mobile peoples.
Speaker 1: And we've touched on this before about the idea, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we have this sort of this rough simple version
Speaker 1: in our head of of what it means for people
Speaker 1: to stop moving around and start growing crops. You know,
Speaker 1: the ideas like should we hunt him gather anymore? No,
Speaker 1: let's just settle here and grow some being. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to quite work like that in history, right that
Speaker 1: it seems hard to imagine a scenario when somebody who
Speaker 1: like grew up as a hunter gatherer was just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're planting crops. You know. It seems like there's
Speaker 1: a more gradual transition of uh sort of the slow
Speaker 1: partial domestication of wild grains and crops, and over time
Speaker 1: this leads to the realization that this could become a
Speaker 1: full time living Yeah, And ultimately I think this is
Speaker 1: a more realistic um we have looking at it and
Speaker 1: understanding it, because otherwise, if you if you have that
Speaker 1: that that full stop and then shift to plant domestication
Speaker 1: or animal domestication, I feel like there's a gap there
Speaker 1: in the in in our brains, and it's a gap
Speaker 1: that some of us may want to insert aliens in.
Speaker 1: You know, you start thinking like, well, how did we
Speaker 1: how did we get the idea to grow and domesticate
Speaker 1: beans or turn wheat into flour um something must have
Speaker 1: told us how to do it. There must have been
Speaker 1: some magic flame, or some gimmi god, or some sort
Speaker 1: of alien being. And of course there are there are
Speaker 1: plenty of tremendous myths and folk tales that that kind
Speaker 1: of deal with that exact situation. And we'll get to
Speaker 1: a couple of examples in a bit. You know, those
Speaker 1: stories are good enough that you don't need to make
Speaker 1: up a new one. That's right. You don't need to say, oh,
Speaker 1: is aliens that gave us farming? Alright, So wild beans
Speaker 1: grow throughout Central America, and a cluster of wild beings
Speaker 1: around Guadalajara seemed to be the common ancestor of the
Speaker 1: common domesticated being that we mentioned earlier. This was what
Speaker 1: a Fasiolus vulgaris. And this species comes in in many
Speaker 1: different forms, including red beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the beans weet today are our variations
Speaker 1: on faziolas. Faziolus the genus more broadly, and Faziolis vulgaris
Speaker 1: the common being. Now you might wonder, well, what what's
Speaker 1: the difference between between this wonderful being and the various
Speaker 1: wild beans. What's the main difference. Well, it has to
Speaker 1: do with how the bean pods split open in the wild.
Speaker 1: The bean pod just eventually splits open, spills the seeds
Speaker 1: so that maybe it may be spread, you know, by
Speaker 1: largely by various organisms. But this was gradually bred out
Speaker 1: of domesticated beans, as people repeatedly picked bean pods that
Speaker 1: were less prone to splitting apart. And it's unsure to
Speaker 1: what degree this was intentional or accidental, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: mixes of both at different times, but the results were
Speaker 1: domesticated bean species that could not spread their seeds without
Speaker 1: the aid of human harvesters. Interesting now, you might wonder, Okay,
Speaker 1: when does this take place? Well, Fagan and Mythn wrote
Speaker 1: that the dating, at the least at the time of
Speaker 1: their writing was patchy at best uh, and they did
Speaker 1: not provide a rough estimate for the for these beans
Speaker 1: in Central America, though the squash seems to have undergone
Speaker 1: biological domestic change by umred BC and maze by fort
Speaker 1: hundred BC. Keinoa again in the south dates roughly to
Speaker 1: five thousand BC. I love this kind of puzzle in
Speaker 1: human history, of like putting together what kind of like
Speaker 1: human activity could have led to the like changes in
Speaker 1: the evolution of a plant species like this that like
Speaker 1: without even necessarily intending to Yeah, yeah, what sorts of
Speaker 1: choices be they you know, just just very direct choices
Speaker 1: or just sort of sort of uh, gradual selections take
Speaker 1: place by humans interacting with the natural world. Now, I
Speaker 1: think you promised me some bean myths from ancient meso America,
Speaker 1: didn't you. Yes, yes, so so again, like we said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to be that gap in which you
Speaker 1: insert the divine, but it's it's often it's it's often
Speaker 1: very interesting and entertaining and uh and and and also
Speaker 1: you know, it's a sacred when you have uh have
Speaker 1: a god slip into that role. And indeed, there's a
Speaker 1: wonderful Aztec myth that I came across about the bringing
Speaker 1: of grains and seeds into the human diet, which I
Speaker 1: read about in Aztec and Maya Myths by Carl Tobb.
Speaker 1: This is from UM. Now, now I should be clear
Speaker 1: that there are several different myths about the origins of maize.
Speaker 1: In particular because maze or corn is just vitally important
Speaker 1: uh to uh to Central American cultures, and at times
Speaker 1: they're described as a kind of sacred flesh or the
Speaker 1: precursor to human flesh, or the flesh of the gods.
Speaker 1: Maize is life, but beans are nice to beans, maybe
Speaker 1: less flashy as maize or corn, I feel, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that's even the case today. You know, it's
Speaker 1: Children of the Corn by Stephen King, not children of
Speaker 1: the beans. Um Like maze is maybe just a little sexier,
Speaker 1: uh than beans. But the beans are vitally important too,
Speaker 1: and so they get looped into some of these myths
Speaker 1: as well. Well. I mean this goes back to something
Speaker 1: that I was talking about when I read that section
Speaker 1: from ken Albola earlier about how I think he was
Speaker 1: talking about some of the domestication of lentils in particular.
Speaker 1: But you know, he talks about how together the grains
Speaker 1: and the and the beans form a nutritional package that
Speaker 1: supplies things that the other doesn't have and it doesn't
Speaker 1: have or doesn't have in the same abundance. So the
Speaker 1: example here was that combining starches and legumes, where the
Speaker 1: amino acids that are not in the lentils are supplied
Speaker 1: by the grains, but the lycene that's missing from the
Speaker 1: grains is supplied by the legumes and that when you
Speaker 1: have these different crops coming together to form a sort
Speaker 1: of like diet package, they fill the gaps of the other. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you need them both even if one is if
Speaker 1: one takes on slightly more sacred connotations and the myth
Speaker 1: making Now, this myth in particular was recorded in Legends
Speaker 1: of the Suns, and this was found in the fifteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight codex Chimo Popoca, and this was written in
Speaker 1: the novel language. So in this myth, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna mostly just summarizing here. So humans have been created
Speaker 1: and I'm and I'm not entirely sure from the context
Speaker 1: if if if like a lot or most of the
Speaker 1: humans are actual infants in this scenario, But the gods
Speaker 1: are unsure what the humans are going to eat, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: the humans exist now, but they have to eat something.
Speaker 1: So the gods go out in search. The Aztect gods
Speaker 1: go out in search of things that humans can consume.
Speaker 1: And during his own search, while we have a familiar
Speaker 1: character here, we have Quetzal Codal, the plume serpent god
Speaker 1: that we've discussed on previous episodes. Um he's involved in
Speaker 1: the search. He goes out looking for sustenance for the
Speaker 1: new humans, and he comes across a red ant carrying
Speaker 1: a single grain of maize, and he realizes, well, this
Speaker 1: might be the very grain that humans need in order
Speaker 1: to survive. So the plumes serpent God sweeps, you know,
Speaker 1: sweeps down from from the sky and he he just
Speaker 1: starts talking to the aunt and he says, hey, that's
Speaker 1: that's some wonderful, wonderful foods you got there on your back.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me where you got it? And the
Speaker 1: Aunt says no, which I which I love Aunt defiance,
Speaker 1: but Quetzalcotal is insistent. So the Aunt finally reveals the
Speaker 1: source of this and many other precious grains, including beans,
Speaker 1: and it's the interior vault of Mount Tona Cateptl, the
Speaker 1: Mountain of Sustenance. So Quetzalcota is impressed by this, transforms
Speaker 1: his own body into that of a black ant and
Speaker 1: he infiltrates the Mountain of Sustenance, and indeed he finds
Speaker 1: it just feel it's like this hollowed out vault and
Speaker 1: it's just filled with seeds and grains. Uh, there's maze there,
Speaker 1: there beings um. So he steals some of the maze
Speaker 1: brings it back, and the other gods they take the maze,
Speaker 1: they chew it up, and then they feed it to
Speaker 1: these human infants to make them strong. So already I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that instead of some demigod or hero
Speaker 1: stealing a secret resource from the gods and bringing it
Speaker 1: to humanity, we instead having we we seem to have
Speaker 1: something more like a god stealing a secret resource from
Speaker 1: nature itself, from this treasure trove hidden within the mountain.
Speaker 1: It almost it almost makes me wonder if this, uh,
Speaker 1: this in some way inspired the Hobbit. Well, yeah, it
Speaker 1: I when you think of of of mountain depths filled
Speaker 1: with riches, you do kind of think of the dwarfs.
Speaker 1: But I also wonder if it, you know, if it
Speaker 1: is also ultimately telling about trends and Mesoamerican um religion
Speaker 1: and considerations of the natural environment. You know that that
Speaker 1: that that that ultimately that nature sort of stands apart
Speaker 1: from the gods to a certain extent. Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So you're saying, like, not identifying the gods with nature.
Speaker 1: The gods are not the forces of nature, but another
Speaker 1: thing like humanity that sort of must wrestle with the
Speaker 1: forces of nature. Maybe in some ways to a certain degree.
Speaker 1: That though, on the other hand, you do have gods
Speaker 1: that are very much associated with aspects of nature as
Speaker 1: well in these systems, so uh, you know, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it's a clear cut division. So anyway, quetzal Total
Speaker 1: took on the form of an aunt brought out like
Speaker 1: a few pieces of corn to help feed humanity. But
Speaker 1: clearly this is not going to hold up in the
Speaker 1: long run. So what they need to do is they
Speaker 1: need to bring the mountain of sustenance to the humans.
Speaker 1: So Quetzalcode slings a rope around the mountain and tries
Speaker 1: to drag it to the human nursery camp, but it's
Speaker 1: too big because it's a mountain. Another plan is needed,
Speaker 1: so they decided to bring in a little a little
Speaker 1: counseling on this, and they turned to Oxomoco and sit Bactonal.
Speaker 1: This is the first human couple and the goddess of
Speaker 1: night and the god of astrology and calendars, though I
Speaker 1: think both of them are considered gods of astrology and calendars. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that sounds like that they would have some wisdom
Speaker 1: or maybe predictive power. Yeah. Yeah, And so these two
Speaker 1: individuals divine that they must turn to another god for
Speaker 1: help to help them plunder the riches of the mountain.
Speaker 1: The diseased god and future sun deity non Hudson, whose
Speaker 1: whose name apparently means full of sores. That's a good
Speaker 1: god name. This is funny that we were just talking
Speaker 1: about Nerkele earlier with that sort of disease god. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: um it's it's slightly different. I think that this god
Speaker 1: is not necessarily a manifestation of disease, but is he
Speaker 1: He himself is diseased and then is faded to become
Speaker 1: a sun deity. But but yeah, again we see this
Speaker 1: kind of element of plague and disease, if we it's
Speaker 1: tempting to want to compare that to this this history
Speaker 1: of of mold World and the and the rise of
Speaker 1: the bean and the rat. So anyway, um U Nana
Speaker 1: Hudson moves in and with the aid of blue, white,
Speaker 1: yellow and red play locks the directional gods of the storms,
Speaker 1: um Nana Hudson breaks open the Mountain of Sustenance. The
Speaker 1: grains spill out, and then the tide locks. They gather
Speaker 1: up the maze, the beans, other culinary treasures from the
Speaker 1: depths of the mountain and they dispense them to the people. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I love this for multiple reasons. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just a great story, but also there's a
Speaker 1: certain kind of plausibility to it that uh that that
Speaker 1: you know is it's not just the sort of myth
Speaker 1: logic of breaking open a mountain full that's a corny
Speaker 1: copy of food that can then feed everyone. I mean,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about again with like grains and beans,
Speaker 1: a really wonderful thing about these types of foods is
Speaker 1: that they can be stored and transported in dried form,
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of other foods. And because of this
Speaker 1: quality that they can be stored and transported dry with
Speaker 1: their nutritional content intact in order to be resurrected later
Speaker 1: through cooking. Uh, they they have so much, so much
Speaker 1: sort of like versatility as a civilization founding food source
Speaker 1: than a lot of other types of food would have
Speaker 1: foods that generally need to be uh preserved in some
Speaker 1: way specially or kept fresh or something like that. But
Speaker 1: also because of this, like they remind me more of
Speaker 1: the physical measures that you would see in other types
Speaker 1: of stories where there's a mountain full of gold coins,
Speaker 1: or something, and here it's like you can have dried grains,
Speaker 1: literal beans or grains. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, like this is
Speaker 1: the true, the true larger worth rating here. Um. I
Speaker 1: also love the idea of the calendar gods being involved
Speaker 1: in in cracking it open, because ultimately, like being able
Speaker 1: to being people of the calendar aids you in the
Speaker 1: domestication of plants and in the management of your crops
Speaker 1: and your ability to you know, to know wind to plant,
Speaker 1: wind to harvest, wind, seal away and then when to
Speaker 1: uh you know, bring it back and plant once more.
Speaker 1: That is interesting. I didn't make that connection. Yeah, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I think maybe we're gonna have to call part one there.
Speaker 1: But we've got so much more interesting stuff to talk about.
Speaker 1: Next time. We're going to talk about beans and souls,
Speaker 1: ancient religious beliefs, about beans from other parts of the world.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about soybeans, which yes they're also beans.
Speaker 1: Uh it's it's going to be the bee's knees. So
Speaker 1: join us again next time. That's right. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind, maybe some of our past
Speaker 1: treatments of of food related topics like tomatoes for example. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can find all of those in the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed. You'll find that wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. We have our our core science episodes
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have artifact episodes on Wednesday's
Speaker 1: listener Mail on Mondays, and on Fridays we do uh
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, which is uh, not so sciency and
Speaker 1: more about just us geeking out over some some weird
Speaker 1: movie from the past. Huge thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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