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Boris Cherny’s Blog

Boris Cherny’s Blog

I just finished Oliver Sacks’ excellent Everything in Its Place. In it, he mentioned as an aside that the Ginkgo biloba tree is hundreds of millions of years old, and its phenotype has been practically frozen since then – a living fossil.
Of course, this is the same tree that grows ぎんなん (Ginkgo nuts), an East Asian delicacy found in many dishes, 茶碗蒸し (Chawanmushi) for example.
Ginkgo has been around so long, it predates the dinosaurs! And we still eat it! How cool is that. This got me thinking – what are the oldest foods we consume today?
Criteria:
1. Must be edible by humans
2. Must be morphologically unchanged since its fossil age
PhotoKingdomSpeciesCommon nameAge (years)
AnimaliaTachypleus tridentatusHorseshoe crab480M
PlantaeGinkgo bilobaMaidenhair nuts290M
PlantaeBryoria fremontiiWila250M?
PlantaeCladonia rangiferinaReindeer lichen250M?
PlantaeCycas revolutaSago palm200M
PlantaeAraucaria araucanaMonkey puzzle tree nuts160M
PlantaeEquisetum arvenseHorsetail140M
PlantaeWelwitschia-112M
PlantaeOsmundastrum cinnamomeumCinnamon fern70M
PlantaeTrapa natansWater caltrop nuts66M
PlantaeNelumbo lutea, Nelumbo nuciferaLotus65M+
Note: I’m a hobbyist, and not a paleobotanist. Additions and edits are welcome, if I misclassified or missed anything.
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