Global finger on pulses

THE 19th century German philosopher Hegel formed his most important understandings in the wake of the Napoleonic upheaval across Europe.

The lives of millions had been driven into chaos by the actions of a single French Emperor, yet Hegel concluded that more important than the influence of any individual were the cultural and social influences of the age.

His crafted term for this shared stimulus was zeitgeist, meaning ‘the spirit of the times’.

Today we use the word more loosely to describe that inexplicable circumstance whereby people in a shared community seem to come up with similar cultural or business ideas at the same time. Yet a clearer example of zeitgeist can be seen in the birth of agriculture.

Communities separated by oceans and ethnicities, with no ability to meet, discovered the practice of planting crops in remarkably quick succession.

Soon after the first crops of chickpeas, lentils and emmer wheat were planted in Mesopotamia around 10,000BC, Andean communities began planting potatoes in South America. New Guinean tribes began planting sugarcane and cassava, people of the Sahel in Africa planted sorghum and manioc.

What was so breathtaking about this discovery was that it could happen to such disparate groups of humans, at such similar times, despite the differences of climate, culture and history.

It is in these remarkable transformations that we have the clearest evidence of just how similar and how connected all people really are.

GREEN DHAL serves / 4 Ingredients

1 brown onion, finely diced 6 cloves garlic, minced 8cm piece ginger, cut into fine batons 1 green chilli, finely chopped 6 cardamom pods 2 cinnamon sticks 12 curry leaves 2 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced 2 tbsp sesame oil 2 tbsp curry powder 1½ cups green lentils, rinsed 1L chicken stock 1 cup coconut cream 6 cups spinach leaves 1 bunch coriander leaves 1 bunch mint leaves ½ bunch Thai basil leaves

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