...How did it ever occur to someone that this was edible?...

I mean, I'm guessing some variation of "hey that tree I used as firewood sure had some good smelling smoke and made the food we cooked over it better, I wonder what else we could do with it . . . "

Yea, that or

I mean. There’s foods out there that if you don’t cook them exactly right they will kill you. Humans have been trying absolutely everything to see what they can eat.

there is a shark. The greenland shark. It lives in the ocean where humans naturally die. At depths that would crush a human. In water so cold it would very quickly kill a person. It’s a big shark, 20ish feet. Several have been found with polar bear in their stomach. They live hundreds of years. To keep from freezing, their blood is full of anti-freeze chemicals that makes their meat poisonous to humans.

They are considered by humans living near them to be... a delicacy.

Of course you have to bury it for six months to let it ferment the poisons out.

i swear to gods, if it’s on this planet, we will find a way to eat it.

did you know, the first scientists to find a whole frozen mammoth out in the tundra ... cooked some and ate it? Like, they found it and excavated it, and while still on site these 2 professionals with degrees said to each other, oh we gotta eat some of that. It was like 17 THOUSAND years old. They said it tasted bad. No shit. But that’s humans for you.

anyway, the cinnamon harvesting is awesome, never saw that before

Humans are one of the most accomplished omnivores on the planet.