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rogerjpatterson's review
4.0
The thesis of this brief book is simple: humans have a genetic taste for flavor that is not explained by the need for nutrition, but may have driven our evolutionary development. It contains plenty of anthropology, history, and evolutionary biology ranging from the extinction of mega-fauna to the functions of shared meals. But the approach is ultimately a bit scattershot, and the simple thesis is neither rigorously supported nor its implications convincingly presented. In the end, this is a nice meditation on why we pursue flavor, but shows more how much work remains to be done than how much work has been done.
zackbabins's review
2.0
I didn’t actually finish this book. It was interesting, if a bit try-too-hard-to-be-funny dry. I actually found the section on culinary extinction of woolly mammoths to be quite interesting.
Then I read the sentence “In giving into temptation, Eve shat and fertilized a baby tree” and I physically could not go on reading. You don’t recover from a sentence like that.
I never stop reading books halfway through but I just couldn’t go on.
Then I read the sentence “In giving into temptation, Eve shat and fertilized a baby tree” and I physically could not go on reading. You don’t recover from a sentence like that.
I never stop reading books halfway through but I just couldn’t go on.