The Devonian Cookbook

1 The Devonian Cookbook: Prehistoric Dishes to Dodge

Welcome, time traveler, to the most dangerous meal you’ll never eat.

Back in the Early Devonian Period (roughly 419 to 393 million years ago), Earth was a steamy greenhouse world teeming with strange plants, jawed fish in armor, and absolutely nothing that should ever be put on a plate. And yet, if you were stranded there without your snack stash from the 21st century, you might be tempted to sample the local cuisine.

Don’t.

This cookbook is your guide to what not to eat, a survival warning disguised as a menu. We’ve sourced “recipes” from real Devonian flora and fauna, all backed by paleobotanical and evolutionary science. Just don’t try any of these unless you’re aiming for extinction.

The Recipes

Here’s your survival menu for the Devonian. Six dishes you should definitely avoid, unless you’re trying to invent food poisoning 400 million years early.

2 Slow-Boiled Psilophyton Shoots

Looks like asparagus. Isn’t. May cause internal mutiny.

• Main Ingredient: Psilophyton, one of the earliest vascular land plants.
• Preparation: Pick young stalks from marshy ground. Boil for 3 hours. Weep.
• Tasting Notes: Bitter, woody, high in indigestible lignin-like tissues.
• Survival Rating: ★★★☆☆
• Science Note: Psilophyton lacked true leaves or roots, but its vascular tissue was a game-changer — just not for digestion. Think proto-celery with the structural integrity of driftwood.
• Time Traveler Tip: Your gut enzymes evolved to handle spinach, not Devonian shrubs made of near-wood. Severe bloating and liver stress expected.

3 Charred Juvenile Pterygotus with Brackish Glaze

Technically seafood. Practically a biohazard.

• Main Ingredient: Young Pterygotus – a juvenile sea scorpion carefully separated from its considerably larger, crocodile-sized parent.
• Preparation: Lure juvenile from tidepool using decoy trilobites. Net swiftly (do not anger the parent). Char over flat rocks near a geothermal vent.
• Tasting Notes: Ammonia-laced crustacean with the texture of a wet tire.
• Survival Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
• Science Note: May contain heavy metals and ancient parasites. Chitinous shell is indigestible.
• Time Traveler Tip: Use extreme caution when harvesting – if the juvenile squeals, its metres-long parent may arrive for dinner… and you’re the entrée.

4 Stewed Bothriolepis with Marsh Fern Garnish

If the smell doesn’t stop you, the internal bleeding might.

• Main Ingredient: Bothriolepis, an armored, bottom-dwelling placoderm.
• Preparation: Scoop from murky stream. Stew for 5 hours with crushed early ferns.
• Tasting Notes: Sulfurous, grainy, and suspiciously crunchy.
• Survival Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
• Science Note: Bothriolepis had no teeth, a bony head, and gills near its anus – a bottom-feeder built for disaster, not digestion.
• Time Traveler Tip: If your dinner breathes and poops from the same general region, maybe don’t stew it.

5 Devonian Algae Tisane

Hydration, hallucinations, and a swift immune system collapse.

• Main Ingredient: Devonian puddle water rich in cyanobacteria and microbial mats.
• Preparation: Strain through a moss-covered stick. Heat briefly.
• Tasting Notes: Metallic with overtones of pond scum and existential regret.
• Survival Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
• Science Note: Contains neurotoxins, anaerobic bacteria, and life forms that predate your immune system.
• Time Traveler Tip: Sip slowly – or don’t. Your 21st-century antibodies gave up halfway through the first mouthful.

6 Devonian Air Bread

Half-baked science meets prehistoric indigestion.

• Main Ingredient: Wild airborne spores collected on a mash of mosses and silt, fermented in low-oxygen atmosphere.
• Preparation: Leave moss-and-spore mash in the sun for 3 days to ferment. Bake over a volcanic vent until dense and vaguely bread-like.
• Tasting Notes: Thick, sour, and airless — “air bread” in name only.
• Survival Rating: ★★★☆☆ (Technically edible, but your stomach may never forgive you.)
• Science Note: Anaerobic fermentation in low-oxygen air may trap gases like methane or hydrogen – bake it wrong and you’ve invented prehistoric sourdough shrapnel.
• Time Traveler Tip: Rising bread requires oxygen. Devonian air has only ~13% oxygen. Don’t hold your breath.

7 Amber Slab Pudding

A dessert so ancient, even the gelatin is prehistoric.

• • Main Ingredient: Tree resin infused with microbial syrup and suspended aquatic arthropods.
  • Preparation: Gently heat conifer resin with fermented pond sugars and crunchy invertebrates, then set in stone molds overnight in a bog – garnish with algae purée and a sprig of liverwort if you’re feeling fancy.
  • Tasting Notes: Waxy, gelatinous, and vaguely floral, with a crunchy arthropod finish that lingers well past extinction.
  • Survival Rating: ★★★★☆
  • Science Note: Tree resin isn’t toxic, but your digestive tract will file a formal complaint.
  • Time Traveler Tip: Don’t microwave. The chirping noises are normal. Probably.

8 Survival Rating Key

Not all prehistoric snacks are created equal, so before you dig in, check the rating to see if it’s dinner or a death wish.

9 ⚠️ Final Advice for Devonian Diners

• Do not eat anything unless you brought it from your time.
• Do not drink the water unless you boil it, filter it, and also pray.
• Do not trust anything that looks like asparagus, trout, or seaweed.

Your liver has never seen these molecules. Your gut flora can’t help you. The Devonian world is not your picnic ground. It’s a biochemical minefield.

Pack snacks. Travel safe. Don’t eat the ferns.

10 Want to Find Your Own Prehistoric “Ingredients”?

If reading this has made you hungry for ancient life (strictly visually), you can explore real fossil sites that inspired this cookbook. Check out my adventures at Crow Island and the world-famous Joggins Fossil Cliffs – no time machine required, and definitely no Devonian cooking.