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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@futurebird IIRC, Japanese macaques have been observed washing potatoes in sweet water, before seasoning them with salt water.
Shrikes impale grasshoppers and leave them to dry for a while to let toxins degrade, like humans do with many foods that are not so good raw.
Ants also dry seeds in this manner so they won't go bad in their granaries.
This is probably a function of a "do not bring wet things in the nest" but they still do it.
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If I took your lunch and put it in a blender I've ruined it. But for many animals this wouldn't matter, it's the same food.
Textures, all of these details are important.
@futurebird somewhere back in our ancestry there was that one primate who went "wait. I know these berries are terrible to eat on their own but if I put them with this muskrat I bet they'll really make it pop off!"
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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 How about toucans, with the fruit-toss mating ritual?
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If I took your lunch and put it in a blender I've ruined it. But for many animals this wouldn't matter, it's the same food.
Textures, all of these details are important.
@futurebird @WhyNotZoidberg You don't know that. Have you ever had a KFC Famous Bowl?
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If I took your lunch and put it in a blender I've ruined it. But for many animals this wouldn't matter, it's the same food.
Textures, all of these details are important.
While I love this thread about cooking,
("The ape who stir fries" is gold!)
I saw this comment first, and I swear I thought it was going to be about throwing shade at AI "slop".
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@futurebird There are also the animals that prefer cooked if they can get it. Dogs definitely do. That said dogs HAVE evolved to enjoy sugar more than wolves just by living with us...
Of course humans ARE weird. Not only do we actively search out chilis and other super-spicy fruits and seeds (designed to keep plant eaters away) but then, as you said, we deliberately light fires, something all other species fear...
No, we're not even unique that way. Black kites, whistling kites, and brown falcons all pick up burning embers and use them to start forest fires intentionally: https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-intentionally-set-prey-ablaze-rewriting-history-fire-use-firehawk-raptors
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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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 I often wonder who did some cooking thing first.
"Oops, it rained on some grains that I stepped on, let me put the resulting mess in the fire for a while & then eat it".
"These apples are really rank, let's make juice with them & see if it messes with our brains & gives us a headache tomorrow".
The one I can most easily understand might be "Let's try to eat the animal that died in a brush fire".
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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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