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This seems like a stretch. Everything else in the basket is clearly a fruit. A pine cone isn’t a fruit. A pineapple is. It looks like a pineapple in a basket of
by irrational 6y ago
This seems like a stretch. Everything else in the basket is clearly a fruit. A pine cone isn’t a fruit. A pineapple is. It looks like a pineapple in a basket of fruit.
- multiplegeorges 6y agoSeriously. The basket is full of delicious edible things and... a pinecone? The theory presented is either missing some background knowledge we need to understand it (pinecones were highly valuable to Romans? I dunno) or it makes no sense.
- klyrs 6y agoPine nuts come from pine cones, specifically stone pine trees are endemic to Europe. It might not be that weird to find a pine cone in a fruit basket
- riffraff 6y agoNot only that, I'm quite sure green pinecones are edible and still eaten in parts of the world. To me it seems the mosaic indeed shows what looks like a "young" pine cone (i.e. you see square platelets), not the open one you would get pinecone nuts from. A quick googling suggests a few Russian recipes[0] though I feel I had them somewhere in Greece. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/329953-4-russian-recipes-pine-cones/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/32...
- mytailorisrich 6y agoMy experience is that the best pine cones for pine nuts are the ones just about to open. Before that they are not ripe, but once they are open the nuts quickly fall off (at which point you look for them under the tree before the squirrels do).
- mastazi 6y agoMaritime Pines, the kind that is most common in Central Italy, have edible pine nuts. I grew up in Italy and I remember pine nuts being much more mainstream there as a food, compared to other countries where I've lived. They are consumed both by themselves and as ingredients in various recipes (an example is Pesto sauce - the original Italian version uses pine nuts - another example is the Tuscan "torta della nonna", a type of dessert). Obviously the ancient Roman cuisine was very different compared to modern Italian food but I suspect Romans may have been eating pine nuts too.
- shoto_io 6y agoThe first thing I thought looking at it: It is a pineapple. It was an immediate thought. There is also the fruit part on top, which makes it even more resembling a pineapple...
- jahller 6y agoIs it possible that pine apples found their way via the asian continent to ancient Europe? e.g. via the silk road?
- rozab 6y agoSimilar things have happened[0], but no other new world crops made it across. What use is a seed which grows in warm climates to a trader in Alaska? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tiny-blue-beads-european-artifact-north-america-old-180976966/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tiny-blue-beads-eu...
- irrational 6y agoThere are some hints that maize/corn made it across. Apparently there are carvings on temples in India that predate Columbus that appear to show corn cobs.
- BiteCode_dev 6y agoI have seen thousands of pine cones in my life, living in France, and none of them have hairs on top, not such a different coloration between the body and the head. It doesn't mean it's a pineable though, Occam razor would lead me to thing it's more likely a fruit most people are not accustom to see. E.G: figue de barbarie: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figue_de_Barbarie https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figue_de_Barbarie (and if you wonder, it's very good) Not that I think it's a figue de barbarie, the body matches, but not the head, yet there are a lot of fruits people don't know about, or it could have been a fruit that disappeared since. After all, we lost a whole class of banana type, why not other things?
- gpderetta 6y ago> figue de barbarie (and if you wonder, it's very good) they are also quite commonly grown and eaten in Italy, but apparently they are also of American origin.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoAll cacti except one species are from the Americas. That one species also somehow managed to colonise equatorial/southern Africa in addition to South America.
- Clewza313 6y agoThose are called prickly pears in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia_ficus-indica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia_ficus-indica
- Y_Y 6y agoBy the way, in English I'd call this a prickly-pear. Wikipedia lists the following synonyms: Indian fig opuntia, Barbary fig, cactus pear, prickly pear, spineless cactus, and tuna (borrowed from Mexican Spanish).
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoEverything else in the basket is clearly a fruit... but what kind? From the left, there's some kind of leaf (bay leaves?), figs, ... some pale yellow orbs that could be loquats or anything else, grapes, ... some red orbs that are probably pomegranates and ... something that is about the size of two and a half figs. It's actually not that easy to recognise what the mosaic is showing, especially with so much missing context after a couple thousand years. Bit of a stretch to call that thing a pineapple then. Edit: Oh, and what's that behind the "pineapple"? That's even harder to decipher than anything else in the basket. Come to that, can anyone recognise the species of fish below the basket?
- pvaldes 6y ago> Everything else in the basket is clearly a fruit... but what kind? Figs (or garlic), quince, grapes and pomegranates
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y agoIt could be quince.