The Incas Drank Beer and Ate Guinea Pigs

Here are a few things I learned from "our" 7th grade board-display project on food and drink of the Incas:

- A better way to cut and paste using Word. As proficient as I am in Microsoft products, seems that my 12 year old is far better.

- There's a website called IowaFarmer. com, and its main claim to fame is its CornCam, a webcam that continuously watches some farmer's corn grow. The image is updated every 15 minutes.

- There's a website called Wheatmania. com. No, it doesn't feature a WheatCam, but it does have weekly photos of a Kansas farmer's wheat crop, complete with distance and close-up shots of the wheat.

- Incas mainly ate potatoes, maize, alpacas and guinea pigs.

- Incas rarely drank water. Instead, they constantly drank chicha, which was a fermented drink made from corn. In other words, they drank beer all the time.

- Incas invented popcorn. Seems that if they warmed dried corn to the point where it split open, it didn't spoil.

- Incas invented freeze-drying of food. They left small potatoes out to freeze at night at high elevations. Once frozen, they would stomp on the potatoes to squirt out all the water. When they wanted to use the dehydrated potatoes, they would just add water. Sort of like the food astronauts carry into space, and backpackers tuck into their packs.

We're all hoping for an A on our project.

Now that I've found the CornCam and the Wheat Mania crop update, I may next look for the PaintDryingCam. I bet it exists.

Send emails to DeborahWhite@UniqueRecipes.com.