5 ms·
Cooking is so straightforward that it would be astonishing if it weren't discovered. There is a fire in the jungle; hungry humans discover a cooked chicken near
by whatabackend 8y ago
Cooking is so straightforward that it would be astonishing if it weren't discovered. There is a fire in the jungle; hungry humans discover a cooked chicken near the perimeter and realize it was the hot fire that caused it to smell and taste so good. Next time, they go to a fire, capture it and control it to cook some meat. From here, it's monkey see monkey do and the rest is history.
- mrob 8y agoWhy would it smell and taste unusually good before cooking was invented? Isn't it more likely that appreciation for the taste of cooked food evolved because cooked food is safer and more nutritious? If there's no cooked food there's no reason for this preference to evolve.
- koolba 8y agoIt may be the stronger smell or the faster delivery of particulates of burnt fat through the air. Dogs, wolves, and bears can’t cook or start fires but all of them are attracted to the smell of cooked food as well. You could argue that dogs and maybe wolves co-evolved that preference alongside ours, but that doesn’t hold up for bears.
- peteradio 8y agoWhy come did bears evolve to steal my pickinickbasket them?
- BoiledCabbage 8y agoAre bears attracted to the smell of cooked food? Or just attracted to the smell of food, and cooking is how most people treat food out in the wilderness?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 8y agoThis is the classic HN comment about how easy it was to invent something in retrospect, but applied to fire. (If it's so easy, why do none of the other ape species do it? How long before you get an accidental cooked chicken, not an incinerated one?)