Delicious: The Evolution of Flavor and How It Made Us Human

299 Pages·2021·11.141 MB·English

by  Rob Dunn, Monica Sanchez

DELICIOUS

Delicious
THE EVOLUTION OF FLAVOR AND
HOW IT MADE US HUMAN
Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez
Prince ton University Press
Prince ton and Oxford
Copyright © 2021 by Rob Dunn
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Dunn, Rob R., author. | Sanchez, Monica (Anthropologist)
author.
Title: Delicious : the evolution of flavor and how it made us human /
Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez.
Description: Prince ton : Prince ton University Press, [2021] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020037562 (print) | LCCN 2020037563 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691199474 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780691218342 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Taste— Physiological aspects. | Smell— Physiological
aspects. | Perception— Physiological aspects. | Flavor.
Classification: LCC QP456 .D86 2021 (print) | LCC QP456 (ebook) |
DDC 612.8/7— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020037562
LC ebook rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020037563
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Alison Kalett, Whitney Rauenhorst
Production Editorial: Terri O’Prey
Text Design: Karl Spurzem
Jacket Design: Jessica Massabrook
Production: Jacqueline Poirier
Publicity: Sara Henning- Stout, Kate Farquhar-Thomson
Copyeditor: Jodi Beder
Jacket illustrations by Natalya Balnova / Marlena Agency
This book has been composed in Arno Pro with Futura display
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Why do we eat?
In order to pursue the flavor of things.
— Hsiang Ju Lin and Tsuifeng Lin[1]

CONTENTS
Prologue: Eco- Evolutionary Gastronomy ix
CHAPTER 1. Tongue- Tied 1
CHAPTER 2. The Flavor- Seekers 25
CHAPTER 3. A Nose for Flavor 53
CHAPTER 4. Culinary Extinction 80
CHAPTER 5. Forbidden Fruits 114
CHAPTER 6. On the Origin of Spices 129
CHAPTER 7. Cheesy Horse and Sour Beer 154
CHAPTER 8. The Art of Cheese 182
CHAPTER 9. Dinner Makes Us Human 203
Notes 215
References 245
Illustration Credits 261
Index 263
vii

PROLOGUE: ECO-E VOLUTIONARY
GASTRONOMY
The human craving for flavor has been a largely unacknowledged
and unexamined force in history.
—E ric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation
A number of years ago, on a path on top of our favorite island
in Croatia, we stumbled upon a series of abandoned structures.
Later it would become clear that they w ere stone pens in which
people once kept sheep. The structures were circular and im-
mense, and in amongst them we also found the remains of what
appeared to be a h ouse once inhabited by a f amily. These ruins
may well have been thousands of years old. The island was long
inhabited by Illyrian pastoralists. It has been argued that these
pastoralists were the inspiration for the Cyclopes in Homer’s
Odyssey. They slept in stone houses or caves and lived lives de-
pendent upon sheep, the milk of sheep, the meat of sheep, and
even the wool of sheep. The structures we found might have
been Illyrian. Or they might have been far more recent. The
island is a place in which ancient structures and newer ones
comingle easily in ways that are not always legible. We had
come to these structures after having visited, earlier in the day,
a cave lower on the island in which hunter- gatherers had lived
ix