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Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

There's a huge difference between something being made edible, often out of dire circumstance or extreme poverty, and something being desirable, let alone "the best thing ever." Surströmming is such a perfect example. It came from a different time and a different place, where you're eating your unpleasant fermented fish while trying to make it as tolerable as possible, or you're going hungry.

The reason their eating habits changed is because through economic and technological development, they were able to move beyond eating what they can to eating what they want. In short, progress.

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Hmm, but what people want is strongly influenced by culture...

Fermented foods interestingly aren't just a good way to preserve things for hard times, but have beneficial effects on our guts. Even the shift you're describing from hardship to plenty has a dark side, it's an abundance of a few foods at the loss of a wide variety of nutrients and flavors, some of which I am sure many of us now find 'funky'.

As for entomophagy, I see that other primates do quite a bit of it[1], though my assumption is that as we get bigger, eating enough of them becomes more work (until you can make nets...)

1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23039342/

But most fermented foods eaten in the west would also fit this definition … and you’re not calling out gherkins as disgusting.

In SE Asia and Africa some insects command high prices. People have preferences between them.

What food you find disgusting is likely entirely arbitrary — on the proviso that reasonably large populations of other people from other cultures don’t share your preference.

damn i love me some gherkins. Are those fermented? I had no idea how they were made.

They are pickled, not fermented (at least the kinds I can buy in the USA – perhaps there are other varieties?)

Yes, you wash them with hot water and salt two or three times then leave them to ferment for a week or two in the last batch if salt water with horseraddish, parsley root and maybe a pepper if you like them a bit spicy (not kimchi spicy). This is the proper way to do it, as opposed to using vinegar.

We eat shrimp and crabs. They're basically water insects. I would totally eat insects approved as food, just not processed insect flour, which I think will be used as a filler in other products in the future, just like soybean protein is used today.

Climates also play roles. Nordic winter could be cold and dry enough that Surströmming might naturally become sterilized as it is processed, whereas pork in Israeli desert or intestine processed in Midwest America could not have been safe, possibly as late as early 20th century.

Stop being such an arrogant person from the self-annointed "civilized" world. This is such bullshit. We're "better", "economic and tech development", "move beyond", "they don't even want to eat it" , "progress". Framing those "savages" as desparate for any scrap, it's ridiculous. It's so biased, and totally incorrect. Just coming from such a one-sided point of view. Just see outside of that, that's the point, don't think you're better than them. It's BS, man. How can you see it's just: you think you're way is the best. But you're wrong. It's just the only way you know. You don't have to be so blind as to pretend only your way is the right way. That wrong attitude is the foundation of abuse.

I agree with this. I live in a country where blood pudding is “cultural” but many ppl find it disgusting.

Not at all true. Your tastes aren’t progress either

It’s a comic but I think it captures the idea that just by making something edible it eventually becomes a preference.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/craproot

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