The Trouble with Legumes
Posted in Learning Experiences, People on May 2nd, 2012 by Matt Newman – Be the first to comment
My only run-in with the legacy of Pythagoras lies in a mathematical theorem: A2+B2=C2. One of those familiar formulas you’re smacked around with in middle school geometry, something most of us had to suffer. (“Suffer” being relative to whether or not you’re as mathematically stunted as I am.) But in the shadow of this Greek philosopher’s lauded contributions to the number game, what else do we find?
Beans, actually–the same delicious, colorful family of foodie favorites we were talking about only recently. It’s thanks to the obscure (dare we say esoteric?) knowledge of Matthew Wills that we were clued into the rather demented history of the legume.
Bear with me here. I’m not running off on a mad tangent about the piddling dietary habits of a long-dead philosopher. Or maybe I am. It was during Pythagoras’ lifetime as a renowned Greek thinker and teacher that he seeded a bushel of ideas far above and beyond his maths. He also created a religion of sorts. And within the guidelines of that religion, supposed dietary restrictions. I say “supposed” because Pythagoras never wrote anything down himself; it was owed to his followers in succeeding generations that anything the man thought or declared was ever saved for posterity. In and among reflections on the transmigration of the soul and the importance of music, we find the humble bean.
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