"It does not take hundreds of years to rapidly eat up all the low-hanging fruit if they suddenly materialize again.  I expect there were some subcultures around with fifteen-year-olds who'd never eaten any of the standard recipes, and those fifteen-year-olds got paid enough to drop whatever they were doing and intensively investigate different apple-crisp recipes for a month."

"It does not take hundreds of years to rapidly eat up all the low-hanging fruit if they suddenly materialize again.  I expect there were some subcultures around with fifteen-year-olds who'd never eaten any of the standard recipes, and those fifteen-year-olds got paid enough to drop whatever they were doing and intensively investigate different apple-crisp recipes for a month.  Or somebody demonstrated convergence on an obviously optimal method and then that method didn't contain much specific information about the past.  Some mix of things like that."