To Eat Human: #2 in a series about eating food in a habitually healthy way
It's a recipe book! I mean a history book! I mean a life improvement book! Yup.
Eating used to be hard work for humans. About 7 million years ago - 230,000 generations before us - to achieve today’s standard 2000-2500 calorie intake, our forbearers spent half their waking hours chewing. Sadly, some of our contemporaries spend the same amount today, with vastly worse results.
Amassing just 1/40th of our body weight, our brain demands a full 25% of all the food stuffed down our gob-hole. It’s one greedy bitch, man. And that’s how we treat it. Pretty damn poorly.
Imagine a recipe book with no limits, just a loose plan to be curious about food. What food? I don’t know. What food do you think about? How do you think about food? Do you know the difference between processed and prepared food? Do you know what’s in your food? Where it comes from? Who grew it or killed it?
I think about food all the time. Obviously, becoming a Professional Chef at age 33 changed my life. Prior to that, I was a talented home cook with zero formal training. Not even a date-night cooking class. Pity that now. I’ve spent nearly three decades in this rodeo learning what it is to be human. And to eat like one.
In the first installment of this series about food, and the humans that eat it, we flew at thirty-thousand feet. For this episode, we fly back in time a few million years. From Hunter-Gatherer to Texter-Retriever, we’ve lost what it means to fend for ourselves. To our detriment. There’ll come a time my certain skills will lead.
Listicles and links are good, but rarely completed or clicked. One such bulleted bulletin: be intentional, be habitual, and be patient. Oh, all well and good, you murmur, inner dialogue shouting “what the fuck do I cook, bro?” I got you. The first lesson while cooking from recipes is to read the entire recipe. Bro.
The goal of discipline (recipe-cooking) is self-discipline (free cooking). Find a new dish that challenges your skill-set and flavor-profile. Choose a meal that requires an unfamiliar ingredient from an ethnic market. Decide on a new spice and search a recipe to feature it. Easiest dinner hack: grab a hand-held basket at market, peruse a food mag, seek something new and exciting, purchase the ingredients. Go home and make it. Let fear be your guide and caution be your excuse. Hold nothing back. Pour it all out into the pan. It’s your glory to gain.
Before Yoda said his try thing, Luke said “I don’t believe.” Yoda replied “That’s why you fail.” Let’s look at what happens when we don’t know the full story.
Preparing for the culinary future must take into account the roots of human diet and the first appearance of cooked food. In fact, in the post-apocalyptic doom-world rapidly approaching, those that cook will be leaders of society. The Broken-Free World will depend on Culinary Knowledge as a touchstone of humanity. The Leader of that world may very well be a Culinarian controlling Fire and Food.
As we prepare for that future, certain endeavors are both strategic and necessary. To preserve humanity, making peace with Robots is paramount in my thinking about future collaborations. It’s not without complete ignorance or my own human selfishness that I remember many, if not most, of human advancement is due to early adaptors. Go Robots!
Prologue: A Culinary Journey into the Unknown
In the not-so-distant future, where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur, we embark on a culinary expedition that transcends the ordinary. Welcome to the realm where the kitchen becomes a stage, and the ingredients unfold tales of mystery and intrigue. As you leaf through the pages of this recipe book, prepare yourself for a gastronomic adventure unlike any other.
In the annals of culinary history, there exists a tale that stretches the limits of the human palate and challenges the very essence of our culinary pursuits. It is a tale inspired by a peculiar episode from the depths of the Twilight Zone, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the unimaginable is served on a silver platter.
Enter the world of "To Serve Man," a Twilight Zone classic that weaves a web of suspense around the notion that benevolent extraterrestrials have arrived on Earth, bearing a mysterious book titled, "To Serve Man." The enigma unfolds as humanity embraces the visitors' seemingly altruistic intentions, only to discover a chilling truth that sends shivers down the spine.
In our culinary voyage, we draw inspiration from the Twilight Zone's cautionary tale, infusing it with flavors that resonate with both familiarity and audacity. The recipes within these pages are not merely instructions; they are a narrative, a journey into uncharted territories of taste and imagination.
As you delve into the chapters ahead, consider this book not just a collection of recipes but a guide to an unexplored universe of flavors. Let the aroma of curiosity guide your culinary compass, and may the gastronomic revelations within these pages inspire you to question the boundaries of your own kitchen.
So, fasten your apron strings and prepare to enter a realm where the culinary arts meet the unknown. This recipe book is not just about what you serve on a plate; it's an invitation to explore the extraordinary, to challenge your palate, and perhaps, to redefine what it truly means "To Serve Man."
ChatGPT
Three years, and 200+ posts later, my effort to publish it is overshadowed by your commitment to support it. Whatever it is. Many of us here on Substack often fumbled and mumbled when asked what it is we write about. Just today, one of my favorites here, Kevin On Repeat, wrote about that feeling. With this series, I’m demonstrating what Kevin spoke about in his current post. Community. And helping each other, and how hard that is to do in this digital age. Especially for us Analog Kids. I appreciate your followship, which allows me to engage so many of you in a personal and meaningful way.
This series, indeed my platform, is all about that. About human connection, through the five elements of life that I believe create culture - Food * Music * Art * Craft * History
If you’re keeping up with the Joneses, please consider helping me catch up to them. Your magnanimity is boundless. I’m asking for your comments or suggestions to indicate how this project is going for you. Without readers, it’s like the bear shitting in the woods without Charmin. Or something like that. ?”
Sleeping on the ground makes us human
Tool use began 3.3 million years ago, about a million years before the controlled use of fire by the Homo species. There is a raging dispute in the anthropological world about fire and cooking - some believe that cooked meat kick-started human evolution. Others are arguing that hominids ate raw meat sliced and tenderized with stone tools way before fire was domesticated, therefore priming the pump for said evolution.
I’ve included links below to some very thoughtful articles that give compelling arguments for both points of view. I’ll take the long view; Earth is 4 billion years old. Humans, in their earliest form, have been here about 7 million, probably. That’s like 0.001750000 of the time on Earth. Two seconds in a 12 hour day.
All Hail the Fire God
The saga of cooking is the saga of culture. To consume cooked meat, we needed different guts than an ape. And smaller, flatter teeth. We became bipedal, which meant we couldn’t climb back up the tree for safety. All of these incremental evolutionary advances kept piling up, and natural selection kept building upon those human improvements. We had to gather around a fire to eat and stay safe.
Habitats changed habits, and reality altered routines. That’s a lesson we can apply today, to this very minute, into our lives. Our realities and our habitats are not static. My Now-Normal post-pandemic is significantly different than my pre-pandemic. And maybe yours is to. If you say that it isn’t, I’d ask for proof.
Migrating from office-work-life to home-work-life has altered the habitat and changed the reality of millions of humans. Unlike ancient humans, whose eating habits evolved over millions of years, our eating patterns have devolved into the path of least resistance in less than a hundred years.
We keep hand in bag. We sit more than ever. Our hunting is two-stage: first for our phone, then for our choice. Our gathering? Getting the door-dash. Males compete to not get the door, arguing that’s it’s your turn. Tipping is the new tribal tribulation and tribute.
Full Disclosure: I love me my convenience - I do. But I’m straight-up gonna say this - if you grub-hub more than 3 meals a week from fast-food, thanks for reading. Where you going?
Fire was a fact of life for early humans no doubt, but uncontrolled. It was a force of magic and mystic. I imagine early Shamans advising Chiefs to instruct our ancestral storm-chasers to hear the thunder and follow the lightening. Behold the bounty of cooked Mammoth Meat, compliments of the Fire-God. All the tubers, roots, nuts, and seeds roasted to perfection. But this was not the daily.
Professor Wrangham posits that human control of fire was necessary not only for cooking meat, but as protection from predators now that humans were sleeping on the ground, not in trees. What’s mind-blowing to me is that cooking with fire didn’t happen in Europe until less than a half-million years ago. Maybe they’ll discover indoor plumbing and shaving razors soon. Thank God they have beer.
Ok I hear you - recipes - cooking - eating - for humans now. Got it. Well, let’s look at what those early first humans ate shall we? And that will tell us what we should be looking for when we think about what we put into our mouths, day in and day out today.
I believe in cultural exploration. I want to share my culture with you. And I want you to share your culture with me. The closest humans alive today that can even provide a glimpse into our culinary past are actually in two distinct communities.
The Hazda People of Northern Tanzania are “. . . descendants of Tanzania's aboriginal, pre-Bantu expansion hunter-gatherer population, they have probably occupied their current territory for thousands of years, with relatively little modification to their basic way of life until the last hundred years.”
This is an amazing window into cultural rituals and this passage resonates with me for its remarkable parallels to its modern explanation. I prefer the Hazda’s.
Oral tradition
One telling of Hadza's oral history divides their past into four epochs, each inhabited by a different culture. According to this tradition, at the beginning of time, the world was inhabited by hairy giants called the akakaanebee "first ones" or geranebee "ancient ones". The akakaanebee did not possess tools or fire; they hunted game by running it down until it fell dead; they ate the meat raw. They did not build houses but slept under trees, as the Hadza do today in the dry season. In older versions of this story, fire was not used because it was physically impossible in the earth's primeval state, while younger Hadza, who have been to school, say that the akakaanebee simply did not know how.
In the second epoch, the akakaanebee were succeeded by the xhaaxhaanebee "in-between ones", equally gigantic but without hair. Fire could be made and used to cook meat, but animals had grown more wary of humans and had to be chased and hunted with dogs. The xhaaxhaanebee were the first people to use medicines and charms to protect themselves from enemies and initiated the epeme rite. They lived in caves.
The third epoch was inhabited by the people of hamakwanebee "recent days", who were smaller than their predecessors. They invented bows and arrows, had containers for cooking, and mastered the use of fire. They also built huts like those of Hadza today. The people of hamakwabee were the first of the Hadza ancestors to have contact with non-foraging people, with whom they traded for iron to make knives and arrowheads. They also invented the gambling game lukuchuko.
The fourth epoch continues today and is inhabited by the hamayishonebee "those of today". When discussing the hamayishonebee epoch, people often mention specific names and places, and can say approximately how many generations ago events occurred
5 Things about Hadza Diet that Will Surprise You
Just because we learned to control fire and cook meat doesn’t mean we were chillaxin around the Hazda Hibachi. We had to catch that meat first. So of course, in any discussion of diets, or DIETS, we come to to the Rubicon: Fad or For real.
An ethnography for fad diets
Dr. Paul Saladino
What We Learned from One of the Last Hunter-Gatherer Tribes
Two links describe the same experience in vastly different terms. Going back in time never works. We always fuck it up, don’t we? We take outcomes from cultures we don’t understand and apply those to inputs we cannot fathom, and sell it in a pill or a shot or a frozen meal.
Delivered at your doorstep without any activity or intent on your part to involve yourself in the feeding of yourself. Never talk to anyone and eat what is left on the ground on your doorstep. Let’s change that dynamic. Stare at the image below.
Is The Secret To A Healthier Microbiome Hidden In The Hadza Diet?
Here’s a factoid to cause a pause - please consider your dietary choices. Don’t stop short. Don’t stop on a dime. Don’t stop eating. Just stop eating without intention. Choose what you eat. Hunt your food. Gather your staples. Explore your surroundings and exploit your time in evolutionary history. IT’S YOUR CHOICE!
You can eat anything that you want to. Fifty bowls of Cheerios a day?
Hadza consume a huge amount of fiber because throughout the year, they eat fiber-rich tubers and fruit from baobab trees. These staples give them about 100 to 150 grams of fiber each day. That's equivalent to the fiber in 50 bowls of Cheerios — and 10 times more than many Americans eat.
downunder diet
There’s another tribe, Aboriginal Australians that eats a diet based on the land and what they hunt and gather. Hence the label Hunter-Gatherer. This tribe has a spokesman called Fred, and Fred is awesome.
Guide to Australian bush tucker: 10 ingredients used in traditional Aboriginal food
These large, worm-like creepy crawlies are actually white wood-eating moth larvae. They love feeding on the roots of the witchetty bush and the wood of black wattle trees, making them easy to snag. Often eaten raw or roasted in hot ashes, they are the most important high-protein insect food found in the desert. So, what exactly do they taste like? Surprisingly, when eaten raw, the liquid center of the witchetty grub tastes nutty and almond-like, and when cooked, its insides turn a light yellow and the outer skin becomes reminiscent of crisp roast chicken. Some say that cooked grubs taste like scrambled eggs, others are reminded of the flavor of popcorn. As far as bush foods go, that doesn’t sound bad at all!
So i listen to songs that make me think and reflect and wonder, and escape. After listening to a thing unknown, my mind desires to fly free. To find new and unknown experiences and feelings, to land on unfamiliar terrain and to discover kindred souls on the same shore, searching for the same but their own. We landed.
This is PREPARED FOOD. Not processed and ready to sauté. Oh what? I can’t sauté? We need to talk. Look how many choices you have. Hunt and Gather. Eat.
Every one of the choices below is a step forward for prepared food. And a rejection of processed food. Do I eat a Double-Jack at times? Hell yeah! And it’s good. For the moment, in my mobile office of a car, on the road. But not a pattern. Not a habit.
I care about you. This community that supports and nurtures me. I am interested in your health and well-being. Nay, invested in your Holistic Humanity. This is whole body, whole soul, whole heart.
Eat Well Friends,
Ric
I only know one recipe; fortunately, it's my wife's favorite.
"Table for two, please."
Thank you for the shout & kind words! I've definitely gotta work on my elevator pitch. But you're right; community here is huge-- and it matters more today than ever.
With cooking, I've been home this past week and eating in for almost all my meals. It's had a noticeable effect on my mood/energy/etc. And this isn't too big of shift; I wasn't the GrubHub guy, but still...