Yam, cultivate and cook

https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/yam-cultivate-and-cook/

by nikolay • 8 years ago

298 87 8 years ago

primitivetechnology.wordpress.com

dccoolgai• 8 years ago

I've followed this channel for a few years. It's fun to watch his whole series from the beginning, because he builds on what he made in previous videos. Like one video will show how to make a kiln and the next will be pottery in the kiln.

Waterluvian• 8 years ago

There was one video where in the same video he went from some very basic tool to an advanced version of that tool, using each iteration to build the next. I think it might have been a drill but I can't recall.

It was surprisingly inspirational.

lazysheepherd2• 8 years ago

I definitely agree. I think this is the video you mentioned. I have watched it myself many times as well. "Primitive Technology: Cord drill and Pump drill" > https://youtu.be/ZEl-Y1NvBVI

tootie2• 8 years ago

He reset about 6 videos with a new location, but yeah, it's awesome. My kids love it too.

goda90• 8 years ago

It was so exciting when he finally built up to smelting bog iron. He only got a little amount, so not sure you could say he hit iron age technology, but it was cool to see that potential with such simple clay and fire.

beat3• 8 years ago

There's a lot of sophistication in "primitive" agriculture. Humans have always been as intelligent and ambitious as they are today; they just didn't always have today's tools.

Yams always make me think of Gone with the Wind. The climax of Act III (not labeled as such, but stories are stories) is Scarlett O'Hara at her family's plantation. Yankee soldiers have come through and taken every scrap of food, but they didn't recognize the yams as food, because it's a Southern thing (yams in the South came over from Africa with the slave trade). So after they leave, she goes outside, digs up a yam with her bare hands, and starts eating it raw. And then she gives this amazing speech... (edited for book-quoted text)

"As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

And that's the Scarlett O'Hara of the rest of the book/movie, the relentlessly resourceful one who will never allow herself to be victimized by anything or anyone.

justinator• 8 years ago

Interesting, in the movie it's changed to a radish.

debacle2• 8 years ago

Humans have always had the same/similar capacity for intelligence, but the modern world creates people with IQs significantly higher than the median would have been only 150 years ago.

jfz• 8 years ago

Because IQ is a measure of abstract analytical and pattern-matching intelligence, our economic shift towards more analytical/intelligence-driven work causes us to practice those skills more. I could say that FQ (factory-production quotient) has decreased over the last 150 years, but that doesn't mean that people are more or less intelligent, only that they practice different things.

Cthulhu_3• 8 years ago

Is IQ still considered important? I've not seen it around other than people bragging online about having a high IQ, which they take to mean they are very smart (when usually they're not, more like, average).

Also I disagree partially, I do think the modern world creates smarter and/or more educated people, but that's thanks to education. Lots of education. And access to information of course.

beat3• 8 years ago

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Source?

ransom1538• 8 years ago

Does anyone have an idea when these procedures by humans could have been done? The techniques this guy used could have been done 7000bc? (Super recent) They look advanced requiring: passed down knowledge, seasons knowledge, plant knowledge, fire creation, pot making etc. Doing this would have also created villages since you need to stick around to tend plots of land - which would have invited attacks from other tribes.

jdietrich• 8 years ago

The earliest clear evidence of the cultivation of crops is about 11,000 years old. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A culture of the Levant lived in small mud-brick huts and had purpose-built granaries.

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10966.long

Analysis of stone tools suggests that a wide range starchy foods were being systematically gathered and prepared for much of the Middle Stone Age (~280,000 BP to ~25,000 BP) although it is unclear whether these foods were being actively cultivated.

http://www.academia.edu/426173/Middle_Stone_Age_Starch_Acqui...

lake99• 8 years ago

I haven't read the book, but reading this excerpt now, and given my Indian context of vegetables, this initially comes across as masochism. What we call "yam" in India has the full name "elephant foot yam", and is full of calcium oxalate crystals that will seriously hurt the mouth. We boil the vegetable quite aggressively to destroy the crystals.

cfadvan• 8 years ago

In the US a yam is just what people call certain larger varieties of sweet potatoes, and are unrelated to true yams. Having had both, I can feel where you’re coming from!

Mumberthrax• 8 years ago

Is that yam/africa thing actually true?

A friend of mine linked me your comment, expressing disapproval. He said it "reads like some fever dream", and that hacker news is "supposed to be all software engineery". I don't see what the fuss is, but my experience with sites like this is mostly confined to reddit where 97% of comments are twaddle.

edit: apparently sweet potatoes are from the new world: https://piedmontmastergardeners.org/article/sweet-potatoes/

I'm guessing maybe the issue is that yam can refer to sweet potatoes as well as tubers from unrelated species. Did she have a sweet potato or some other tuber in Gone With the Wind?

beat3• 8 years ago

I'm basing it off a recent reading of The Cooking Gene, by Michael Twitty, which is ostensibly a history of African-American cooking in the South, but is in practice a very deep and well-researched history of the slave trade, by way of its food.

Doing a little more checking on what Twitty has to say (he's the authoritative source as far as I'm concerned), it looks like both interpretations are true:

"The yams of West Africa are not sweet potatoes, however sweet potatoes did fit well into cultures already used to relying on root crops. When Africans encounter sweet potatoes as enslaved people they utilized them in ways similar to tropical yams. Later, African varieties of sweet potato, like the Dahomey sweet potato, cross the Atlantic ocean and come to America."

https://afroculinaria.com/2016/10/05/crops-of-african-origin...

edit: One thing you learn from reading Twitty and other modern voices on the subject is just how extensively whitewashed even "scientific" history can be, and how much African contribution gets erased.

fouc• 8 years ago

He made it sound like his yams aren't that tasty, I guess it depends a lot on the strain and growing conditions.

newnewpdro2• 8 years ago

Are yams ever tasty plainly roasted? Most people wouldn't enjoy eating a plain baked potato.

Some salt, paprika, and butter makes a world of difference.

whistlerbrk• 8 years ago

Paprika on a yam? Yeah, yams are unbelievably sweet when exposed to direct fire, like candy sweet. But I'm talking about the Garnet and Japanese varieties, this might just be a less cultivated specie he found locally and just went with it.

starpilot• 8 years ago

Actually, yes. They're sold hot & fresh as street food in South Korea: http://crazykoreancooking.com/foodandculture/Koreas%20Love%2...

loeg7• 8 years ago

Yams are far sweeter than potatoes.

vezycash• 8 years ago

Yams are eaten in a few ways.

Boiled, roasted (as mentioned), as a porridge, fried and pounded.

Boiled - Cut, salted (some add sugar)boiled and eaten with sauce, palm oil, beans...

Pounded - Boiled unsalted yams are pounded into dough form and eaten with soup. It's called pounded yam.

ivankirigin2• 8 years ago

This is probably my favorite youtube channel.

lazysheepherd2• 8 years ago

If categorized very roughly, Primitive Technology would be the best in it's wide category for me.

But I cannot say it is the best channel for me among Vsauce, Kurzgesgt, CrashCourse, and many others.

PuffinBlue• 8 years ago

Yeah, there is an awful lot of really fantastic content produced on YouTube now.

It's getting to the point where there is so much quality that discovery of it all is getting hard.

In the spirit of your answer, I would say these other channels are also outstanding in their categories:

Any of Brady Haran's (Numberphile/Sixty Symbols/Objectivity etc)

Fully Charged Show (electric vehicles/renewable energy)

Nick Carver (film photography)

Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics (watch a few to grok the style)

Kevin Mullins (Fuji users photography and more)

Explaining Computers (hard to categorise, that's why it's good)

There are many many many more but I think most of those are really widely known, perhaps some of the above aren't quite as widely watched and they're very worth it.

evmar• 8 years ago

Buy him a coffee each time he releases a video: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2945881

(I have no particular connection to the channel or Patreon, I just like that I can support this channel because I also love it!)

vinceguidry2• 8 years ago

Man I love that Patreon exists. Just by the collective weight of $1-2 donations, this guy can support himself just by making these videos. $6k per video isn't amazing, but it ain't too shabby either.

We live in wondrous times.

ivankirigin2• 8 years ago

I agree! I give him $10/month as long as he releases any video.

debacle2• 8 years ago

Survival Skills Primitive is a very similar channel (not as high quality, but more quantity) that has some interesting videos.

vinceguidry2• 8 years ago

It wasn't until I cared to look that I found that there's an entire cottage industry of people making similar videos. I wish there was time to watch them all.

craftyguy3• 8 years ago

It would be interesting to see a way to scale up production to produce more than just a couple of meals.

loeg7• 8 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1ajkzVf-VM

craftyguy3• 8 years ago

.. using the same (or similarly 'primative') technique.

jschwartzi• 8 years ago

You kill the rats and the pigs that come for your yams then smoke the meat.

wool_gather2• 8 years ago

Indeed. He has two other (earlier) videos of him building gardens, one with cassava, which he says is a very high-output food source. He also notes "A person could potentially be nearly self-sufficient from a small plot of sweet potatoes." Presumably it should scale for a small group, since they could share the work.

https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/plantin...

https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/sweet-p...

IIIIIIIIII• 8 years ago

My favorite thing this guy does is not talk, for some reason.

tootie2• 8 years ago

There's another channel called kiwami japan about a guy who mostly is making knives out of things or other silly metal crafts. He also doesn't talk in most of them. I think the sound of banging wood or polishing metal is just very relaxing.

Cthulhu_3• 8 years ago

He does do (hardcoded) captions though. But yeah, most of that is seemingly inefficient home crafts, e.g. using hand drills and saws and lots of fast-forward sharpening.

m0nty• 8 years ago

Ishitani is also very good.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FkqjV8SU5I8FCHXQSQe9Q

atipmt2• 8 years ago

Yes, I think that is the main reason people enjoy his videos. I remember him stating somewhere, that he wanted to make this type of videos, because when he watches instructional videos, he always skips to the part where things are shown (and there is no talking).

moogly• 8 years ago

Agreed. Very refreshing that he's not engaging in that parasocial stuff that most Youtubers do. He let's his videos do the talking. And none of that "don't forget to like, subscribe, and write a question or comment below" mantra that everyone else nags about. Drives me crazy.

Just when we finally got rid of the useless "Press Escape to exit fullscreen" nag...

hjorthjort• 8 years ago

I clicked this fully expecting "yam", "cultivate" and "cook" to be archaic Unix tools. Instead I got this. Such a happy surprise.

cpburns2009• 8 years ago

If we anything they'd be named something like "ym", "cv", or "ck" if they were Unix tools. I was expecting a new set of JavaScript libraries.

int_19h• 8 years ago

My guesses from the title were, in order: 1) A new JavaScript framework; 2) something to do with code quality; and 3) a new build system. Probably all related.

I was pleasantly surprised, as well.

knowThySelfx• 8 years ago

I yam what I yam, said the caveman. Yummy was heard in the background.

hyperpallium• 8 years ago

Interesting, the enclosure need only be big enough to cover the tubers themselves.

...conventional farming practice of clearing trees to make fields. Instead the yam vine uses the trees as scaffolding to climb on, allowing it to reach the light in the forest canopy.

The vines would have to climb a long way, depending on tree height.

(Obviously unacceptable for "primitive technology", but) cooking in aluminium foil avoids loss to charring, and is reusable,

albertfrostt• 8 years ago

Interestingly, aluminum is a really really new material for us. Wasn't really available until ~1950, and used to be more rare and valuable than gold.

Cthulhu_3• 8 years ago

How's that? Hard to refine? I did hear elsewhere that aluminium is one of the most common metals on the world, possibly even moreso than iron.

loeg7• 8 years ago

Sure. For the "primitive" angle, you could wrap in leaves, corn husks, or any other natural product instead to avoid some charring.

michaelbuckbee• 8 years ago

A tip: turn on captions. The creator somewhat famously doesn't talk, but does provide really informative captions for each step of the build/experiment process.

Related: if you like this and want more I recently read a book series called Bonesetter that has a protagonist who lives in primitive times and it tells the story of a person kicked from their tribe, but who prospers by building Primitive Technology type inventions.

https://www.amazon.com/Bonesetter-Book-1-Laurence-Dahners-eb...

mabbo• 8 years ago

Another tip: watch it once without the captions, then again with them.

There's more 'wonder' this way.

chucksmash• 8 years ago

Would also recommend. I watched nearly all of these videos without captions when I first came across the channel before I realized there were captions.

It's fun to "play along at home" and try to figure out why he's doing something without the captions.

hrnnnnnn• 8 years ago

I had no idea, thanks for the tip!

loeg7• 8 years ago

This form of farming is a good way to get around the conventional farming practice of clearing trees to make fields.

Yeah, you harvested two yams (less than a day's calories) over a six month period. That doesn't scale up the way modern farming practices do.

gcb0• 8 years ago

the primitive tech blogger guy is not trying to live off the land. he just have a Survivor/Bigbrother kinda of tv show for survival nerds. he probably live off the proceeds of paracord bracelets and pocket knife banners :)

loeg7• 8 years ago

Again, I was commenting specifically on this claim:

This form of farming is a good way to get around the conventional farming practice of clearing trees to make fields.

It's not a good form of farming, because it's both low density and expensive.

mynameishere• 8 years ago

More to the point, the effort that went into making the enclosure was probably 2000+ calories--more than the yams inside. I think early horticulture is basically: Plant edible food with minimal fuss, and eat what comes up. If wild pigs show up, well, free protein.

atipmt2• 8 years ago

I stumbled on his videos a couple of months ago. Sadly, I only realized yesterday that there were captions that described his process, but watching it without isn't too bad either. He does things in a very evident manner and it's pretty relaxing just watching him do his thing.

distances• 8 years ago

I prefer without captions, it's more relaxing and I'm not planning to replicate the feats anyway. :)

blisterpeanuts2• 8 years ago

What a great idea, to feature this fellow's Primitive Technology blog (and his outstanding Youtube channel) here on a high tech news site.

Fire making, clay pots, mud huts, stone axes, rope, hunting weapons -- these are what kept people alive for eons, and ironically in our modern high tech era, many if not most of these skills are largely forgotten by all but a few remaining primitive tribes and archivists like him.

These videos are worth watching not just to celebrate these high achievements but also to disseminate and preserve the knowledge. Should you find yourself stranded in a forest hundreds of miles from civilization, you may indeed need to build a friction fire, knap a stone knife, weave some cordage, rough up a shelter, and hunt for food.

As a "primitive survival skills" fan (I'm a viewer, not a doer) I have learned so much that I feel a certain confidence that were I to somehow fall off civilization's ship, and be forced to fend for myself, or to help a group of stranded individuals to survive, we would somehow make it.

mljoe• 8 years ago

I think it is interesting to reflect on the idea that high technology builds on top of primitive technology. Just as he uses past tools to make more complex tools, every human era of technology builds upon the last. You could say primitive stone tools are in the recipe for developing an ICBM or a semiconductor if you go back far enough.

wool_gather2• 8 years ago

Brings to mind the famous bone club -> space station transition from the 2001 film.

equalarrow• 8 years ago

Oh yay, someone posted this! I’ve been a subscriber to the primitive technology channel for quite some time. The things this guy makes are truly awesome. I put his videos sometime for my kids because they’re actual worthwhile to talk to them about what he’s doing.

I often think of perception of time when I watch him work. Tens of thousands of years ago, when humans worked like this, their concept of time was completely different than ours. I’ve read comments by the guy that says some of these projects have taken many weeks. With our instant gratification culture, it’s good to reflect on his achievements and timescales.

I’ve also practiced making fire with hand drill and it’s hard. But when it works, it’s awesome. A primal connection to the past.

I recommend watching the video on how he makes lime. Really good stuff.

Yam, cultivate and cook

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