Paleo Europeans were not "cave men" for the most part; they built huts, probably with thatched roofs, and kept a fire going pretty much continuously, as their descendants in Scotland and Ireland were still doing in the early 19th century. No chimney hole; they just let the smoke drift out through the thatch. They probably started hanging extra meat from the rafters to preserve it from canine attention. (Definitely would have lasted longer if the dogs couldn't get at it.) Afterward they would have noticed that, once it had been up there in the smoke for a while, it didn't rot.
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoffrey Purcell <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 5:13 am
Subject: Re: Early cooking
Well, I can only think of pemmican as the sole example of cooked-food that truly
lasts. Given the very poor evidence of organic matter from Palaeo times(other
than bones), I rather doubt evidence of pemmican will ever be found really far
back. The again, I found this article:-
http://antifruitcake.com/hist2.php
So, pemmican certainly seems to have been used in the Mesolithic-era, practised
in North America. No evidence for pemmican in Palaeo Europe has ever been found,
AFAIK, not even c.20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
The trouble with cooking is that it leads to oxidised fats, plus storing it for
long periods worsens the process. It's no surprise, therefore, that canned-foods
so often figure in fo
od-poisoning cases(with much worse results than other
kinds). Can't imagine it therefore being useful to store cooked-foods for long.
There is also a raw-foodist belief, take it or leave it, that annihilating the
natural bacteria within raw meats(via cooking) allows "bad" or "unsuitable"
bacteria to enter the meats, instead, thus causing additional problems.
The taste-preference for cooked-food does have some scientific evidence. There
is increasing scientific evidence for the existence of opioids in
cooked-foods(as well as dairy and grains), which are highly addictive and affect
the brain in a morphine-like way. Plus, if the issue of taste for cooked or raw
foods was solely due to previous habits, it doesn't really explain why wild
animals often go wild for cooked junk-foods left in garbage by humans in
camp-sites etc. I gather even New Scientist has suggested that consuming
junk-food causes highly addictive cravings, according to 1 article(though they
try to claim that it's only because of the excess fats and sugars in foods
rather than the fact that it's cooked):-
http://banzhaf.net/docs/newsci.html
Geoff
> Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 22:55:56 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Early cooking
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> As my enjoyment of raw meat and animal fat increased and I read the posts of
> other raw meat and fat eaters and saw that they come to prefer raw meat to
> cooked, it gradually occurred to me that Paleolithic peoples probably
> started cooking
more as a method of food preservation than for taste, which
> others have hypothesized as well. Taste preference is commonly assumed
> (without evidence) by cooked-food-eating "scientists" to be the main reason.
>
> Pemmican is one of the healthiest and most satisfactory of the partially
> cooked foods, yet I only find reference to it going back 7000 years. Does
> anyone have earlier dates?
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