Tasty by John McQuaid

Fongoli chimps, nicknamed for a stream in their habitat, to work more cooperatively. They form a larger, more cohesive group than typical woodland chimps, and are more willing to share food; in one encounter Pruetz observed, dominant males declined to challenge a hungry female who wanted to take fruit from a pile they’d made. They also fashion basic tools: sticks to scoop termites out of mounds, and spears to skewer tiny creatures known as bush babies that slumber in the nooks of tree branches. This yields a few ounces of meat.
    One might expect to find that animals belonging to larger groups, with more complex dynamics, had larger brains. In the 1990s, the California Institute of Technology’s John Allman set out to investigate this theory among primates. He was surprised to find that primates with bigger brains relative to body size didn’t form larger social groups. But when Robin Dunbar of Oxford University narrowed the question down, he found something surprising. Overall brain sizemight not vary with group size, but the size of the neocortex did. Humans have the largest neocortex relative to body size of any animal; it’s what gives the cathedral of flavor its magnificent architecture. It braids the basic urges and sensations around food together with thoughts, memories, feelings, and language. And it helps tie groups, and society, together.
    Early humans had to collaborate to survive, developing complicated strategies to thwart adversity. Making tools and controlling fire require not only technical skill but knowledge that must be preserved and passed on to others. Hunting demands planning and teamwork. And as all backyard grill masters know, cooking meat depends on the skilled butchering of animal carcasses, fire management, and a dash of creativity. Over time, cooking became about more than just filling stomachs. Humans developed codes and customs around food. Using tools and knowledge to create flavor was the earliest spark of culture.
    Every successful species adapts to its environment. Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist who directs the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program, says that humanity’s talent was more formidable still: our ancestors adapted not just to different environments but to the hard reality that those environments are always changing.
    This is one explanation for the great diversity of flavors and cuisines in the world today, and for a certain plasticity in human flavor sense that other animals lack: why we so easily develop a liking for things that are intrinsically unpleasant, such as bitter coffee or beer, or the heat of chili peppers or wasabi. The chaotic landscape of ancient Africa wasn’t just savannas and scrub: it was dotted with volcanoes, rivers and lakes, plains and peaks, from more than 500 feet below sea level at Lake Assal in the Afar depression, the lowest point in Africa, to 19,340 feet above sea level at Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest. Moving about these changing habitats was how humans first learned to live and thrive almost anywhere. Surviving the East African Rift’s challenges was just the warm-up for the big show of world domination.

CHAPTER 3
    The Bitter Gene
    O ne day in March 1990, President George H. W. Bush banned broccoli from Air Force One. Broccoli belongs to the genus Brassica , the plant family that includes mustard, cabbage, and brussels sprouts, most of which have a similar defense: when cut, their cell walls break, triggering a chemical reaction that releases waves of alkaloids, complex molecules that the human body reacts to in many ways. The most obvious is their bitter taste.
    When the news broke, nutritionists questioned whether this decision set a bad example for America’s children. Incensed California farmers dispatched a cross-country truck caravan bearing ten tons of fresh-cut broccoli stalks to Washington. “I don’t think the president was given broccoli when it was properly cooked,” Julia