4 ms·

Not even that much. A couple of cups of mushrooms -- a generous helping as a side dish -- has around 30 calories. All the significant calories comes from the o

Not even that much. A couple of cups of mushrooms -- a generous helping as a side dish -- has around 30 calories. All the significant calories comes from the oil or butter they're cooked in. I'm not sure it was ever about avoiding starvation, but rather just a different flavor to eat sometimes. When you're always eating the same local ingredients, food can get boring pretty quick. It's the same appeal of spices -- you got a new flavor!

thaumasiotes 1y ago
> It's the same appeal of spices -- you got a new flavor! That's not the appeal of spices. People don't stop using the spices they like in quest of newer, worse-tasting ones. By far the most common case when a person is eating spices is that there's nothing new about the flavor.
- MisterTea 1y ago
  Could also be used to mask stale or spoiled foods that if cooked enough, wont kil you and still contains nutrition. Nothing goes to waste. Another could be preservation as is the case for salt.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    Salt is much simpler than that. It's a vital nutrient and if you don't eat enough of it, you'll die. It's useful for preservation, sure, but you're not eating it because you couldn't find fresh food. You're eating it because it's salt.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  Many spices, as well as actual oil extracted from actual snakes by actual healers, and mushrooms as well, gained reputations in antiquity as medicinal and/or beneficial to health in some way. And this often fueled increased trade and increased cultivation volumes and increased prices and tariffs and wars and cruel laws. In antiquity. And often, the actual medicinal benefits became overhyped, and crept from their scope, and each nation's crown jewel of a spice became a miracle cure-all, and cue the trade wars and sword-wielding knights defending their spice. Basically the "Snake Oil Salesmen" of the Wild West were white hucksters who diluted the actual snake oil down so much, or didn't bother adding any in the first place, then sold the elixirs on Main Street between the saloon and the whorehouse. So the Native Americans were nonplussed that their shamanistic remedies had been subverted as a trope of quacks and hoaxers. Most of all, these spices and mushrooms have been gradually enshittified, perhaps literally, and many of them are a shadow of their former selves, bred for mass-production. And Americans sit there and dust our burger and fries with gray sand that doesn't even taste like black pepper anymore. Not to mention the salt that's been refined until there's nothing but sodium in it. Perhaps mushrooms are the least likely food to be enshittified or deliberately commercialized, except for about 4 types in the grocery stores. From what I've learned about mushroom foraging, it's never worth it; just go buy mushrooms in the store, I mean for crying out loud. The risk is too great, and aficionados can claim "easy identification" all they want, but "easy" is relative and not for you to judge, because there's a fine line between tasty and fatal.
isk517 1y ago
Mushrooms add to the umami flavour, before salt was easily accessible this was probably your best bet for easy flavour enhansement
- busterarm 1y ago
  MSG is like $0.30/kg.
  - steezeburger 1y ago
    I don't think they had MSG before salt
    - busterarm 1y ago
      Who cares? We don't live "before salt". Human use of salt _predates writing_ by about 3000 years. You wouldn't choose to do manual typesetting (or copying books by hand!!!) today either versus alternatives. If you're _just_ looking to add umami flavor to a dish today, you'd be crazy to pick foraging for wild mushrooms over Aji no Moto.
      - lithocarpus 1y ago
        I'm skeptical of any food that humans only started eating since the industrial revolution, including those that are derivatives of or isolated compounds of real food. Mostly the effects on our bodies are not well studied. I haven't specifically read studies on msg though.
        parineum 1y ago
        How much studying of food do you think was happening before the industrial revolution?
        mbg721 1y ago
        I mean, foods like soy sauce and yogurt and sauerkraut predate industrialization, but are very processed. I wouldn't worry too much about MSG in particular, since it is also mostly made by fermentation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

thaumasiotes 1y ago

> It's the same appeal of spices -- you got a new flavor! That's not the appeal of spices. People don't stop using the spices they like in quest of newer, worse-tasting ones. By far the most common case when a person is eating spices is that there's nothing new about the flavor.

MisterTea 1y ago
Could also be used to mask stale or spoiled foods that if cooked enough, wont kil you and still contains nutrition. Nothing goes to waste. Another could be preservation as is the case for salt.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  Salt is much simpler than that. It's a vital nutrient and if you don't eat enough of it, you'll die. It's useful for preservation, sure, but you're not eating it because you couldn't find fresh food. You're eating it because it's salt.
AStonesThrow 1y ago
Many spices, as well as actual oil extracted from actual snakes by actual healers, and mushrooms as well, gained reputations in antiquity as medicinal and/or beneficial to health in some way. And this often fueled increased trade and increased cultivation volumes and increased prices and tariffs and wars and cruel laws. In antiquity. And often, the actual medicinal benefits became overhyped, and crept from their scope, and each nation's crown jewel of a spice became a miracle cure-all, and cue the trade wars and sword-wielding knights defending their spice. Basically the "Snake Oil Salesmen" of the Wild West were white hucksters who diluted the actual snake oil down so much, or didn't bother adding any in the first place, then sold the elixirs on Main Street between the saloon and the whorehouse. So the Native Americans were nonplussed that their shamanistic remedies had been subverted as a trope of quacks and hoaxers. Most of all, these spices and mushrooms have been gradually enshittified, perhaps literally, and many of them are a shadow of their former selves, bred for mass-production. And Americans sit there and dust our burger and fries with gray sand that doesn't even taste like black pepper anymore. Not to mention the salt that's been refined until there's nothing but sodium in it. Perhaps mushrooms are the least likely food to be enshittified or deliberately commercialized, except for about 4 types in the grocery stores. From what I've learned about mushroom foraging, it's never worth it; just go buy mushrooms in the store, I mean for crying out loud. The risk is too great, and aficionados can claim "easy identification" all they want, but "easy" is relative and not for you to judge, because there's a fine line between tasty and fatal.

isk517 1y ago

Mushrooms add to the umami flavour, before salt was easily accessible this was probably your best bet for easy flavour enhansement

busterarm 1y ago
MSG is like $0.30/kg.
- steezeburger 1y ago
  I don't think they had MSG before salt
  - busterarm 1y ago
    Who cares? We don't live "before salt". Human use of salt _predates writing_ by about 3000 years. You wouldn't choose to do manual typesetting (or copying books by hand!!!) today either versus alternatives. If you're _just_ looking to add umami flavor to a dish today, you'd be crazy to pick foraging for wild mushrooms over Aji no Moto.
    - lithocarpus 1y ago
      I'm skeptical of any food that humans only started eating since the industrial revolution, including those that are derivatives of or isolated compounds of real food. Mostly the effects on our bodies are not well studied. I haven't specifically read studies on msg though.
      - parineum 1y ago
        How much studying of food do you think was happening before the industrial revolution?
      - mbg721 1y ago
        I mean, foods like soy sauce and yogurt and sauerkraut predate industrialization, but are very processed. I wouldn't worry too much about MSG in particular, since it is also mostly made by fermentation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate