HAVE WE EVER FOUND A CAVE PAINTING OF A SALAD?

Internet cartoon, public domain.

I recently ran across this cartoon on the internet and it got me to thinking, have we ever found a cave painting of a salad? This is a question that I think we can have some fun with.

In order to begin this I went to the AI (Artificial Intelligence) Graphics program DALL-E2 and asked it to create petroglyphs and pictographs of a bowl of salad carved and/or painted on a cliff face. Some of the results are quite interesting.

Salad pictograph-1, DALL-E2.

Salad pictograph-2, DALL-E2.

The examples shown here are the best of the results and I am really quite happy with these, although it must be remembered that they are images imagined by an Artificial Intelligence program.

Salad pictograph-3 with chef included, DALL-E2. 

Salad petroglyph, DALL-E2.

Now, while I do not know of any rock art representations that can be identified as salads we do know that our ancestors consumed a large variety of plant foods, and I feel safe in assuming that they ingested many of these raw (uncooked), and is this not the true meaning of salad? And we know that they pictured plants as well as animals in their rock art. Some of these portrayals of plants might be thought of as salad ingredients.

Sprouted seed, Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1988.

This, from Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been suggested as a sprouted seed, and we all know that sprouts make a great ingredient for a salad.

Maize, Three Rivers petroglyph site, New Mexico. Photograph Peggy Harris, 1987.

Maize, from the Three Rivers Petroglyph site in New Mexico, could be eaten fresh off the cob.

Fiddlehead fern, Petit Jean Mountain, Arkansas. Internet photograph, public domain.

The tender tips of fiddlehead ferns pictured at Petit Jean Mountain, Arkansas, are edible and would add a crisp variety to the diet.

Squash blossom, Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photograph Peter Faris, 1988.

Squash blossoms could be added to a dish for beauty as well as for nutrition. This is again from Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Indian rice grass, Harvest Scene, Maze District, Canyonlands, Utah. Photograph Don Campbell, 1979.

Indian rice grass at the so-called Harvest Scene from the Maze District, Canyonlands, Utah, provides seeds for crunch and protein .

Figures with a tree, pictograph, Brazil. Wikimedia photograph, public domain.

Figures with a tree, pictograph, Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil. Internet photograph, public domain.

And a couple of pictographs from Brazil show anthropomorphs extremely interested in trees - perhaps for fruit or nuts?

I am confident that you know of many other portrayals of vegetable products that could fit the bill here, and I will be happy to receive any reader submissions for future columns.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retreived from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them.

REFERENCE:

DALL-E2, https://openai.com/dall-e-2/