As a writer, I try to write things that are meaningful and usually have some sort of value to readers. Not today. I’m just going to tell a story about a fantastic culinary accident.
There’s a story somewhere of a bloke named Kaldi, who herded goats all day, way back in the 9th century. One fateful day, he discovered that one of his goats could to backflips after eating beans out of a bush. Curiosity got the better of him and he decided to try some. He couldn’t do any backflips, but he felt more productive and got more things done from his forager to-do list.
He managed to pitch his new found supplement to the local holy man, who was a bit of an entrepreneur when not exorcising demons and making runes. Sadly, the holy man wasn’t too impressed with the idea, and in his close-mindedness, flung the beans into burning fire. Out of the ashes, the all to familiar waft of ground coffee rose, but for the two, it was like a magnificent Phoenix rising.
Both men knew they were on to something, so they took the burnt beans, ground it up and dissolved it into a cup of hot water, and then sold it to everyone they knew. There you have it, Kaldi and the Holy Man, the world’s first Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.
Years later the two sold their invention to some prominent investors at the time. Due to misdemeanors by the investors, their stocks became more diluted than a long black with too much water, and became broke, penniless and out of a world changing drink. Generations later, the Kaldi male decided to rename his clan to ‘Zuckerberg’.
So that’s the story about the invention of coffee; as told by Mayans and Wikipedia, anyway. I felt like sharing this because one of my favorite foods in the world is an accidental combination of two different products: Nutella and crunchy peanut butter on toasted pita bread.
Despite the atrocious calorie count, I eat it and have been eating it on a regular basis. I’m all for watching your kilojule count and being health conscious, but sometimes you just gotta have your daily serendipity moments.
Other deliciously odd variations of nutella:
– Nutella and celery
– Nutella and any biscuit on Earth
– For the daring: Nutella and Weet Bix. Yeah, I did.
I am like Mr. Kaldi. That is all.
The obligatory meme.
The Paper Street Word Factory. 