As I cut my carrots into extra thin little slices (because it makes the crunch just perfect) I started thinking about how strange cooking, as an adaptation is.
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Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
@futurebird Macaques on Koshima Island wash their sweet potatoes in ocean water between bites for seasoning. And it looks like loggerhead shrikes impale toxic grasshoppers on sticks for a couple of days to age out the toxins. But I always think corvids and otters cracking stuff open feels more like cooking.
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Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
@futurebird there is a bird that drops burning twigs into grass to flush out prey.
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Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
@futurebird I'm not sure but I remember having read a text about parallels of very early humans preparing meals and animals. Depends also on the definition of cooking: is it also preparing cold, fermenting? (Apes do love fermented fruits,lots of animals consume natural drugs/alcohol). Or does it need fire? Animals can use sun heat.
I once had a Husky preparing chewing treats. He collected earthworms, transported them to the only place with sand and rolled them there with the paws. Then he
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@futurebird I like thinking about those animals that get excited when some local fruit ferments and gives them all an extra-happy afternoon.
Or when my pickier cat suddenly decides that the very expensive prescription food that sustains her and keeps her alive is just, like, not the most excellent flavor in the world actually? But that other one is too new and weird??
@futurebird Stir-frying is weird behavior, but nixtamalizing--I mean, dang, that is a next-level evolutionary wowzer.
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@futurebird I'm not sure but I remember having read a text about parallels of very early humans preparing meals and animals. Depends also on the definition of cooking: is it also preparing cold, fermenting? (Apes do love fermented fruits,lots of animals consume natural drugs/alcohol). Or does it need fire? Animals can use sun heat.
I once had a Husky preparing chewing treats. He collected earthworms, transported them to the only place with sand and rolled them there with the paws. Then he
@futurebird transported them to a shed's wall (south-side) and let them bake in the sun. Every day he made a check like a gourmet cook, if they were already perfect.
I thought that I was crazily imagining that he cared so much for preparing his favourite chewing gum. But later I had other dogs doing exactly the same. -
As I cut my carrots into extra thin little slices (because it makes the crunch just perfect) I started thinking about how strange cooking, as an adaptation is.
Many animals go to great lengths to secure, prepare and cultivate food sources but cooking goes far beyond maximizing nutrition. It's a cultural practice, communication, self expression.
Ant's do make "ant bread" but this is more like that fad diet powder called "soylent" than cooking just to enhance the joy of eating.
> cooking just to enhance the joy of eating.
I think you're overemphasizing an aspect only developed culturally much later. My guess would be that the initial "incentive" was sterilizing food by heating it. And changing texture, so the food range could be extended a lot.
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As I cut my carrots into extra thin little slices (because it makes the crunch just perfect) I started thinking about how strange cooking, as an adaptation is.
Many animals go to great lengths to secure, prepare and cultivate food sources but cooking goes far beyond maximizing nutrition. It's a cultural practice, communication, self expression.
Ant's do make "ant bread" but this is more like that fad diet powder called "soylent" than cooking just to enhance the joy of eating.
@futurebird "One cannot abide phloem bundles on one's banana little one. Here let me strip that for you."
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Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
@futurebird ruminants sort of naturally cook their food?
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Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
I know some animals accumulate larders that over time improve the food:
> Pikas will cache plants with high concentrations of toxic chemicals in the haypiles that sustain them during the winter months. The toxins act like a natural preservative that make the plants last longer. Pikas will eventually eat these plants in late winter after the toxins break down.
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/American_pika/natural_history.html
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@futurebird transported them to a shed's wall (south-side) and let them bake in the sun. Every day he made a check like a gourmet cook, if they were already perfect.
I thought that I was crazily imagining that he cared so much for preparing his favourite chewing gum. But later I had other dogs doing exactly the same. -
Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
@futurebird I wonder if any cephalopods use hydrothermal vents to cook meals
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Which animals do activities that are most like cooking?
It think about the spider suitors who present their mate with a carefully bundled fly.
I think about raccoons washing their meals in a cool stream.
Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans?
"The ape that sir fries."
>> Is cooking the defining and strangest feature of humans? "The ape that sir fries."
Cooking is more than preparing, assembling, or wrapping. Control of fire is the antecedent to cooking.
No other forms of life seem to exhibit this skill— and the behaviors that follow. Are there cases where an animal catches fish from cold streams and takes them to a hot spring to cook before eating?
Even then, making fire is learned behavior, not innate. So it is not our defining feature.
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