On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 747

thesenseofsmelldoesfarmorethanprovide
informationaboutamouthfuloffood.Smell
detectswhatevervolatilemoleculesareinthe
air.Itthereforetellsananimalaboutits
surroundings:theair,theground,theplants
growingintheground,otheranimalsmoving
nearbythatmightbeenemies,mates,ora
meal.Thismoregeneralroleexplainswhy
we’resensitivetoaromanotesinfoodsthat
arereminiscentoftheworld:wood,stone,
soil,air,animals,flowers,drygrass,the
seacoastandtheforest.It’salsoessentialfor
animalstolearnfromexperience,and
thereforetoassociateparticularsensations
withthesituationstheyaccompany.Thismay
bewhyodorsaresoevocativeofmemories
andtheemotionsassociatedwiththem.
The Variety of Gathered Foods, the
MonotonyofAgricultureOurearliesthuman
ancestors were omnivores: they ate whatever
they could find worth eating on the African


savanna, from meat scraps on an animal
carcasstonuts,fruits,leaves,andtubers.They
relied on taste and smell to judge whether a
new object was edible — sweetness meant
nourishing sugars, bitterness toxic alkaloids,
foulness dangerous decay — and to help
identify and recall the effects of objects they
hadencounteredbefore.Andtheyateavaried

diet that probably included several hundred
different kinds of foods. They had a lot of
flavorstokeeptrackof.
Whenhumansdevelopedagriculture
around10,000yearsago,theytradedtheir
diversebutchancydietforamorepredictable
andmonotonousone.Nowtheylivedlargely
onwheat,barley,rice,andcorn,all
concentratedsourcesofenergyandprotein,
andallrelativelybland.Theyhadveryfew
flavorstokeeptrackof.Buttheystillhad
theirsensesoftasteandsmell.
SpicesHaven’tAlwaysGonewithFoods