[huytersd]

I’m always blown away by how people like this managed to eat. I suppose you could live off bottle deposits if you only ate corn and beans. Even at five dollars a day he would’ve had to collect 50 bottles in the best case scenario.

[zxspectrum1982]

Hunting and gathering is as old as human beings. It's more difficult in the XXI century but in a large-enough forest (and a natural park that is), you can still do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

[b112]

It saddens me to see a comment where finding some way to pay for food, would be the only way to eat.

Outside of local edible vegetation, there is smaller game. And as you say, this is how many used to survive.

But beyond that, you can plant beans and have a crop in weeks. Even with a lack of pesticides and fertilizer, being able to plant a plant here, a plant there, will result in food not being eaten completely by pests.

And the ground is far more fertile, when not monocropping.

And yes, seeds can be reused, it's how farming still works today for many farmers.

To speak to this, where I grew up, many people would go into the woods, and plant a single pot seed here, another there, always close to trees etc, so overflies by police helicopters wouldn't see a crop.

Being rural, some people owned 1000 acres, and plausible denialability exists. Even if some went missing, the scatter method yields results.

[RetroTechie]

> Outside of local edible vegetation, there is smaller game. And as you say, this is how many used to survive.

And: compared to past centuries (or even pre-agricultural), a bit of help from modern society can save a lot of time. A lighter here, a $5 knife or cooking pot there, some discarded materials from a construction site, etc etc.

Doesn't make primitive life easy. But it's not hard to see why some people would prefer it over navigating the complexities (or stress!) of 'living in the fast lane' modern society.

[hyperthesis]

do beans need to be in season, or are some varieties year-round?

[fallinghawks]

Many beans can be dried and cooked months or years later.

[hyperthesis]

I was responding to this:

  you can plant beans and have a crop in weeks.

[huytersd]

Hunting and gathering is fine if you have free rein of the land and live in a relatively productive area (for fruits and vegetables). From what I know of NorCal it does not naturally grow stuff you can pick and eat. Also hunting is relatively restricted around national parks and there is no mention of petrov doing it.

[lonlazarus]

I live in NorCal and do some culinary foraging for fun. There's plenty, I mean people lived here before Europeans colonized. There's all kinds of native berries, blackberry, salmon berry, service berry, elderberry huckleberry. There are plenty of nuts, beaked hazelnuts, black walnut and the most plentiful are acorns.

And there's plenty of small game to hunt and trap. I don't see that Petrov did this, but I imagine if he was comfortable catching and eating a neighbors duck, he probably took a squirrel or two in his life. The natives would obviously fish, take all kinds of small game, even including rat.

[solardev]

Have you tried living off foraged foods for any length of time? Is it realistic to be able to get enough calories, proteins, and fats doing this on your own without extensive fishing and hunting? Sounds like it would need a lot of nuts, and there aren't that many fruiting trees there to begin with, are there?

[xyzwave]

I just read a hypothesis from an anthropologist suggesting that the reason California’s indigenous tribes did not practice agriculture like eastern tribes, was due to the abundance of food they could forage year around. Oaks providing a significant part of their diet (which are plentiful in Mendocino) but also other nuts, berries, and tubers found throughout California.

So relative to our modern diet, maybe your point holds, but the California Floristic Province has plenty of plants to sustain humans. IIRC, the indigenous population density was some of the highest in the world.

[lonlazarus]

That's also my understanding. I do wonder if that's a bit of a misunderstanding about not practicing agriculture, though. They did practice forest management with intentional burns. I'm pretty interested in traditional English forest management, and reducing brush and decreasing canopy increased the amount of forest "products" available to people, from building materials (basketry, hut materials, etc) to increased yields from under story vegetation.

It's a bit of a digression, but it's a subject I find interesting and rarely pops up in hacker news. :)

[solardev]

I thought a lot of that is acorns (that need a lot of preparation) and fish, not so much random food growing around the redwoods you could just pick and eat?

(Lived in the area for a long time, but not an expert at all). Did the anthropologist provide any details? I'd love to read their work

[thimkerbell]

Something would have limited their population though.

[_whiteCaps_]

The Dawn of Everything has an interesting take on this - they didn't practice agriculture because they wanted to differentiate themselves from other cultures in the area.

[huytersd]

I would love to hear what it is. There are truckloads of acorns but it’s all I can think of besides some berries.