Tasty

by John McQuaid

  27 more quickly and gracefully than its predecessors: Timothy B. Rowe, Thomas E. Macrini, and Zhe-Xi Luo, “Fossil evidence on origin of the mammalian brain,” Science 332, no. 6032 (2011): 955–57, doi:10.1126/science.1203117.

  29 occurred in a species of monkey: Yoav Gilad, Victor Wiebe, Molly Przeworski, Doron Lancet, Svante Pääbo, “Loss of olfactory receptor genes coincides with the acquisition of full trichromatic vision in primates,” PLoS Biology 2, no. 1 (2004): E5, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020005.

  29 the fruit-vision hypothesis: B. C. Regan, C. Julliot, B. Simmen, F. Viénot, P. Charles-Dominique, and J. D. Mollon, “Frugivory and colour vision in Alouatta seniculus, a trichromatic platyrrhine monkey,” Vision Research 38 (1998): 3321–27; B. C. Regan, C. Julliot, B. Simmen, F. Viénot, P. Charles-Dominique, and J. D. Mollon, “Fruits, foliage and the evolution of primate colour vision,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 356, no. 1407 (2001): 229–83, doi:10.1098/rstb.2000.0773.

  30 in some primates: N. J. Dominy, J. C. Svenning, and W. H. Li, “Historical contingency in the evolution of primate color vision,” Journal of Human Evolution 44, no. 1 (2003): 25–45, doi:10.1016/S0047-2484(02)00167-7.

  31 most other birds, respectively: Allman, Evolving Brains, 176.

  31 eyes pointing in all directions: Ibid., 128.

  31 nerve centers for making faces: Seth D. Dobson and Chet C. Sherwood, “Correlated evolution of brain regions involved in producing and processing facial expressions in anthropoid primates,” Biology Letters 7, no. 1 (2011): 86–88, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.0427.

  32 result of a random wildfire: Naama Goren-Inbar, Nira Alperson, Mordechai E. Kislev, Orit Simchoni, Yoel Melamed, Adi Ben-Nun, and Ella Werker, “Evidence of hominin control of fire at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel,” Science 304, no. 5671 (2004): 725–27, doi:10.1126/science.1095443.

  33 deer, elephants, and other animals: Nira Alperson-Afil, Gonen Sharon, Mordechai Kislev, Yoel Melamed, Irit Zohar, Shosh Ashkenazi, Rivka Rabinovich, Rebecca Biton, Ella Werker, Gideon Hartman, Craig Feibel, and Naama Goren-Inbar, “Spatial organization of hominin activities at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel,” Science 326 (2009): 1677–79, doi:10.1126/science.1180695.

  35 “Dad, I found a fossil!”: Celia W. Dugger and John Noble Wilford, “New Hominid Species Discovered in South Africa,” New York Times, April 8, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/science/09fossil.html.

  36 nearly perfectly preserved teeth: Amanda G. Henry, Peter S. Ungar, Benjamin H. Passey, Matt Sponheimer, Lloyd Rossouw, Marion Bamford, Paul Sandberg, Darryl J. de Ruiter, and Lee Berger, “The diet of Australopithecus sediba,” Nature 487 (2012): 90–93, doi:10.1038/nature11185.

  38 weaker, finer muscles: Hansell H. Stedman, Benjamin W. Kozyak, Anthony Nelson, Danielle M. Thesier, Leonard T. Su, David W. Low, Charles R. Bridges, Joseph B. Shrager, Nancy Minugh-­Purvis, and Marilyn A. Mitchell, “Myosin gene mutation correlates with anatomical changes in the human lineage,” Nature 428, no. 6981 (2004): 415–18, doi:10.1038/nature02358.

  38 only a tenth: William R. Leonard, J. Josh Snodgrass, and Marcia L. Robertson, “Effects of brain evolution on human nutrition and metabolism,” Annual Review of Nutrition 27 (April 2007): 311–27, doi:10.1146/annurev.nutr.27.061406.093659.

  38 used for chopping and scraping: Peter S. Ungar, Frederick E. Grine, and Mark F. Teaford, “Diet in early Homo: A review of the evidence and a new model of adaptive versatility,” Annual Review of Anthropology 35, no. 1 (2006): 209–28, doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123153.

  39 observations of savanna chimps: Jill Pruetz, “Brief communication: Reaction to fire by savanna chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) at Fongoli, Senegal; Conceptualization of ‘fire behavior’ and the case for a chimpanzee model,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 141, no. 4 (2010): 646–50, doi: 10.1002/ajpa.21245. Pruetz, interview.

  40 to cook hamburgers: E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin, Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind (New York: John Wiley, 1994), 142.

  41 none to do anything else: Karina Fonseca-Azevedo and Suzana Herculano-­Houzel, “Metabolic constraint imposes tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons in human evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 45 (2012): 18571–76, doi:10.1073/pnas.1206390109.

  41 large burst of growth: Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (New York: Basic Books, Kindle Edition, 2009), Kindle location 888.

  42 flavor came alive: Daniel E. Lieberman, The Evolution of the Human Head (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 399–409. For an excellent discussion of this topic, see also Gordon M. Shepherd, Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), chapter 26.

  44 the size of the neocortex did: Allman, Evolving Brains, 173; R. I. M. Dunbar and Suzanne Shultz, “Evolution in the social brain,” Science 317 (2007): 1344–47, doi:10.1126/science .1145463.

  44 environments are always changing: Richard Potts, interview; Richard Potts, “Evolution and environmental change in early human prehistory,” Annual Review of Anthropology 41 (June 2012): 151–68, doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145754; Richard Potts, “Hominin evolution in settings of strong environmental variability,” Quaternary Science Reviews 73 (2013): 1–13, doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.04.003; Richard Potts, “Environmental hypotheses of hominin evolution,” Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 41 (1998): 93–136.

  45 Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest: M. Royhan Gani and Nahid D. S. Gani, “Tectonic hypotheses of human evolution,” Geotimes (January 2008), http://www.geotimes.org/jan08/article.html?id=feature_evolution.html.

  Chapter 3: The Bitter Gene

  48 thumbs-down to brussels sprouts: David Lauter, “Bush Says It’s Broccoli, and He Says . . . With It,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1990, http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-23/news/mn-705_1_barbara-bush.

  48 “Make it cauliflower,” he said: “Bush forced to face green nemesis in Mexico,” Reuters, February 16, 2001, http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/bush-forced-to-face-green-nemesis-in-mexico-1.61185?ot=inmsa.ArticlePrintPageLayout.ot.

  49 enter their digestive tracts: Hanah A. Chapman and Adam K. Anderson, “Understanding disgust,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1251 (2012): 62–76, doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06369.x.

  51 making darker roasts more bitter: Thomas Hofmann, “Identification of the key bitter compounds in our daily diet is a prerequisite for the understanding of the hTAS2R gene polymorphisms affecting food choice,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1170 (July 2009): 116–25, doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.03914.x.

  53 into his mouth and winced: Arthur L. Fox, “The relationship between chemical constitution and taste,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 18 (1932): 115–20.

  54 Fox told an interviewer: J. D. Ratcliff, “It’s All a Matter of Taste,” The Herald of Health (May 1963): 16–17, 25.

  55 three would be purple, one white: Mendel University in Brno website, http://www.mendelu.cz/en/o_univerzite/historie/j_g_mendel.

  55 in a seminal scientific paper: Fox, “The relationship between chemical constitution and taste,” 115.

  55 detected other qualities: Linda M. Bartoshuk, Katharine Fast, and Derek J. Snyder, “Genetic Differences in Human Oral Perception,” in Genetic Variation in Taste Sensitivity, eds. John Prescott and Beverly Tepper (New York: Marcel Dekker, 2004), 1.

  56 the men made themselves scarce: Nathaniel Comfort, “ ‘Polyhybrid heterogeneous bastards’: promoting medical genetics in 1930s America,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 61, no. 4 (2006): 415–55.

  56 investigators from the University of Toronto: Norma Ford and Arnold D. Mason, “Taste reactions of the Dionne quintuplets,” The Journal of Heredity 32, no. 10 (1941): 365–68.

 
57 one-way screens: Dennis Gaffney, “The Story of the Dionne Quintuplets,” Antiques Roadshow, March 23, 2009, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/wichita_200803A12.html.

  59 “the world of neglected dimensions”: C. W. W. Ostwald, An Introduction to Theoretical and Applied Colloid Chemistry: The World of Neglected Dimensions (New York: John Wiley, 1917).

  60 thousands of different substances: Francisco López-Muñoz and Cecilio Alamo, “Historical evolution of the neurotransmission concept,” Journal of Neural Transmission 116 (2009): 515–33.

  60 Taste receptors: Receptors are special proteins that first emerged at least 1.5 billion years ago, long before organisms had mouths or brains, as an ingenious solution to a basic problem: microbes needed to tell what was going on around them—to detect nutrients or light, and to avoid toxins. Then, when multicellular life emerged a billion years later, receptors evolved further. On the outside, the body confronted the flux of the world. But on the inside, systems for digestion, respiration, and other bodily functions had to communicate within and among themselves and the brain. Each new task pushed the humble receptor in new directions, molding chemical structures that do thousands of different things.

  60 pore-like opening at its tip: Chandrashekar, Hoon, Ryba, and Zuker, “The receptors and cells for mammalian taste,” 288; Monell Chemical Senses Center website, Monell Taste Primer, http://www.monell.org/news/fact_sheets/monell_taste_primer.

  61 They dubbed it T2R1: Jayaram Chandrashekar, Ken L. Mueller, Mark A. Hoon, Elliot Adler, Luxin Feng, Wei Guo, Charles S. Zuker, and Nicholas J. P. Ryba, “T2Rs function as bitter taste receptors,” Cell 100 (2000): 703–11.

  61 Arthur Fox’s bitter gene: Dennis Drayna, Hilary Coon, Un-Kyung Kim, Tami Elsner, Kevin Cromer, Brith Otterud, Lisa Baird, Andy P. Peiffer, and Mark Leppert, “Genetic analysis of a complex trait in the Utah Genetic Reference Project: A major locus for PTC taste ability on chromosome 7q and a secondary locus on chromosome 16p,” Human Genetics 112 (2003): 567–72.

  62 man’s closest relative, the chimpanzee: Stephen Wooding, “Phenyl­thiocarbamide: A 75-year adventure in genetics and natural selection,” Genetics 172 (2006): 2015–23.

  62 produced identical taste experiences: Stephen Wooding, Bernd Bufe, Christina Grassi, Michael T. Howard, Anne C. Stone, Maribel Vazquez, Diane M. Dunn, Wolfgang Meyerhof, Robert B. Weiss, and Michael J. Bamshad, “Independent evolution of bitter-taste sensitivity in humans and chimpanzees,” Nature 440 (2006): 930–34, doi:10.1038/nature04655.

  63 turned out to be a taster: Carles Lalueza-Fox, Elena Gigli, Marco de la Rasilla, Javier Fortea, and Antonio Rosas, “Bitter taste perception in Neanderthals through the analysis of the TAS2R38 gene,” Biology Letters 5, no. 6 (2009): 809–11, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0532.

  63 one hundred thousand years ago: Qiaomei Fu, Alissa Mittnik, Philip L. F. Johnson, Kirsten Bos, Martina Lari, Ruth Bollongino, Chengkai Sun, Liane Giemsch, Ralf Schmitz, Joachim Burger, Anna Maria Ronchitelli, Fabio Martini, Renata G. Cremonesi, Jiri Svoboda, Peter Bauer, David Caramelli, Sergi Castellano, David Reich, Svante Paabo, and Johannes Krause, “A revised timescale for human evolution based on ancient mitochondrial genomes,” Current Biology 23, no. 7 (2013): 553–59, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.02.044; Aylwyn Scally and Richard Durbin, “Revising the human mutation rate: Implications for understanding human evolution,” Nature Reviews: Genetics 13, no. 10 (2012): 745–53, doi:10.1038/nrg3295.

  64 started making earth ovens: Richard Wrangham, “Cooking as a biological trait,” Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology—Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology 136, no. 1 (2003): 35–46, doi:10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5.

  64 in a single exodus: Lev A. Zhivotovsky, Noah A. Rosenberg, and Marcus W. Feldman, “Features of evolution and expansion of modern humans, inferred from genomewide microsatellite markers,” American Journal of Human Genetics 72 (2003): 1171–86.

  64 crossed at Bab el-Mandeb: Marta Melé, Asif Javed, Marc Pybus, Pierre Zalloua, Marc Haber, David Comas, Mihai G. Netea, Oleg Balanovsky, Elena Balanovska, Li Jin, Yajun Yang, R. M. Pitchappan, G. Arunkumar, Laxmi Parida, Francesc Calafell, Jaume Bertranpetit, and The Genographic Consortium, “Recombination gives a new insight in the effective population size and the history of the Old World human populations,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 29 (2011): 25–40.

  66 least bitter-sensitive of early American peoples: Sun-Wei Guo and Danielle R. Reed, “The genetics of phenylthiocarbamide perception,” Annals of Human Biology 28, no. 2 (2012): 111–42.

  66 90 percent of non-Africans have it: Nicole Soranzo, Bernd Bufe, Pardis C. Sabeti, James F. Wilson, Michael E. Weale, Richard Marguerie, Wolfgang Meyerhof, and David B. Goldstein, “Positive selection on a high-sensitivity allele of the human bitter-taste receptor TAS2R16,” Current Biology 15, no. 14 (2005): 1257–65, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.06.042. For a more recent study, see Hui Li, Andrew J. Pakstis, Judith R. Kidd, Kenneth K. Kidd, “Selection on the human bitter taste gene, TAS2R16, in Eurasian populations,” Human Biology 83, no. 3 (2011): 363–77, doi:10.3378/027.083.0303.

  68 neon colors rather than gentle pastels: Bartoshuk, “The biological basis of food perception and acceptance,” 28–29.

  70 bitter receptors might be in the nose: Robert J. Lee, Guoxiang Xiong, Jennifer M. Kofonow, Bei Chen, Anna Lysenko, Peihua Jiang, Valsamma Abraham, Laurel Doghramji, Nithin D. Adappa, James N. Palmer, David W. Kennedy, Gary K. Beauchamp, Paschalis-Thomas Doulias, Harry Ischiropoulos, James L. Kreindler, Danielle R. Reed, and Noam A. Cohen, “T2R38 taste receptor polymorphisms underlie susceptibility to upper respiratory infection,” The Journal of Clinical Investigations 122, no. 11 (2012): 4145–59, doi:10.1172/JCI64240DS1.

  72 where they became toxic: Timothy Johns and Susan L. Keen, “Taste evaluation of potato glycoalkaloids by the Aymara: A case study in human chemical ecology,” Human Ecology 14, no. 4 (1986): 437–52.

  Chapter 4: Flavor Cultures

  76 illegal in the United States until 2007: Phil Baker, The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History (New York: Grove Press, Kindle Edition, 2007), Kindle location 187–90; Jesse Hicks, “The Devil in a Little Green Bottle: A History of Absinthe,” Chemical Heritage Magazine (Fall 2010), http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/media/magazine/articles/28-3-devil-in-a-little-green-bottle.aspx?page=1.

  76 trace amounts of thujone: Dirk W. Lachenmeier, David Nathan-­Maister, Theodore A. Breaux, Eva-Maria Sohnius, Kerstin Schoeberl, and Thomas Kuballa, “Chemical composition of vintage preban absinthe with special reference to thujone, fenchone, pinocamphone, methanol, copper, and antimony concentrations,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 56, no. 9 (2008): 3073–81, doi:10.1021/jf703568f.

  77 upper classes a century later: Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (New York: Scribner, 2004), 759.

  80 kill off other yeasts: Patrick McGovern, Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer and Other Alcoholic Beverages (Berkeley: University of California Press, Kindle Edition, 2009), Kindle location 300.

  80 tens of millions of years old: P. Veiga-Crespo, M. Poza, M. Prieto-­Alcedo, and T. G. Villa, “Ancient genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae,” Microbiology 150, pt. 7 (2004): 2221–27, doi:10.1099/mic.0.27000-0.

  80 ubiquity of baker’s yeast: wasps: Irene Stefaninia, Leonardo Dapporto, Jean-Luc Legras, Antonio Calabretta, Monica Di Paola, Carlotta De Filippo, Roberto Viola, Paolo Capretti, Mario Polsinelli, Stefano Turillazzi, and Duccio Cavalieri, “Role of social wasps in Saccharomyces cerevisiae ecology and evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 33 (2012): 13398–403, doi:10.1073/pnas.1208362109/-/DCSupplemental. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1208362109.

  81 tracked these monkey benders: Dustin Stephens and Robert Dudley, “The Drunken Monkey Hypothesis,” Natural History (December 2004–January 2005): 40–44.

  81 Dudley suggested: Robert Dudley, “Ethanol, fruit ripening, and th
e historical origins of human alcoholism in primate frugivory,” Integrative and Comparative Biology 44, no. 4 (2004): 315–23, doi:10.1093/icb/44.4.315.

  82 such accidents became recipes: McGovern, Uncorking the Past, Kindle location 449–85. I am indebted to McGovern’s fascinating account of primate drinking and the earliest alcoholic beverages.

  83 two, eight, and ten: Laura Anne Tedesco, “Jiahu (ca. 7000–5700 BC)” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jiah/hd_jiah.htm.

  83 herbs also appeared: Patrick E. McGovern, Juzhong Zhang, Jigen Tang, Zhiqing Zhang, Gretchen R. Hall, Robert A. Moreau, Alberto Nunez, Eric D. Butrym, Michael P. Richards, Chen-shan Wang, Guangsheng Cheng, Zhijun Zhao, and Changsui Wang, “Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101, no. 51 (2004): 17593–98, doi:10.1073/pnas.0407921102.

  86 ambitious, or maybe just stubborn, project: Ruth Bollongino, Joachim Burger, Adam Powell, Marjan Mashkour, Jean-Denis Vigne, and Mark G. Thomas, “Modern taurine cattle descended from small number of Near-Eastern founders,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 29, no. 9 (2012): 2101–4, doi:10.1093/molbev/mss092.

  87 enabling people to digest lactose: Yuval Itan, Adam Powell, Mark A. Beaumont, Joachim Burger, Mark G. Thomas, “The origins of lactase persistence in Europe,” PLoS Computational Biology 5, no. 8 (2009): e1000491, doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000491.

  88 8,500 to 7,000 years ago: Richard P. Evershed, Sebastian Payne, Andrew G. Sherratt, Mark S. Copley, Jennifer Coolidge, Duska Urem-Kotsu, Kostas Kotsakis, Mehmet Özdog˘an, Aslý E. Özdog˘an, Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, Peter M. M. G. Akkermans, Douglass Bailey, Radian-Romus Andeescu, Stuart Campbell, Shahina Farid, Ian Hodder, Nurcan Yalman, Mihriban Özbas¸aran, Erhan Bıçakcı, Yossef Garfinkel, Thomas Levy, and Margie M. Burton, “Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding,” Nature 455, no. 7212 (2008): 528–31, doi:10.1038/nature07180.