Contrary to the dogmas of raw-foods enthusiasts, cooked cuisine was central
to the biological and social evolution of humanity, argues this fascinating
study. Harvard biological anthropologist Wrangham (Demonic Males) dates the
breakthrough in human evolution to a moment 1.8 million years ago, when, he
conjectures, our forebears tamed fire and began cooking. Starting with Homo
erectus.who should perhaps be renamed Homo gastronomicus.these innovations
drove anatomical and physiological changes that make us adapted to eating
cooked food the way cows are adapted to eating grass. By making food more
digestible and easier to extract energy from, Wrangham reasons, cooking
enabled hominids' jaws, teeth and guts to shrink, freeing up calories to
fuel their expanding brains. It also gave rise to pair bonding and table
manners, and liberated mankind from the drudgery of chewing (while chaining
womankind to the stove). Wrangham's lucid, accessible treatise ranges across
nutritional science, paleontology and studies of ape behavior and hunter-
gatherer societies; the result is a tour de force of natural history and
a profound analysis of cooking's role in daily life. More than that, Wrangham
offers a provocative take on evolution.suggesting that, rather than humans
creating civilized technology, civilized technology created us.

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