David
. In fact, I have
>wondered recently whether attraction to cooked food even in us humans might
>be an example of this phenomenon (that is, some of the pyrolytic products
>are super-stimuli). Now there's a burning question.

Hi David
Your question is a perfectly valid one.
In the case of meat the chemical which gives beef its unique flavour is a
peptide chain of eight amino acids. This peptide is generated from a larger
parent protein as beef ages after its  slaughter. If you grill the meat it
has been demonstrated that the instantaneous  production of this peptide is
equivalent to several weeks of aging.  You are really talking about a super
stimuli here....

As a kid, I used to refuse to eat the grilled steak which my mother
invariably served us at lunch time. I  thought grilled meat was disgusting
and  I resisted to it until I was nearly sixteen. ( I guess my current
determination to eat instinctively is a reflection of years of passive
resistance) . In summertime, I would take the opportunity of the whole
family dining on the terrace to scatter bits of thoroughly cooked meat on
the lawn, while my parents were not looking in my direction. Subsequently ,
while mowing the lawn, I would invariably find the piece of cooked meat
dried, but unspoiled, disseminated  around the dining place (my parents
never mowed so they never discovered the trick until I told them ). As a
young fisherman I knew it was impossible for a piece of raw meat to be left
in the open without worms starting to develop in the heart of the meat in a
couple of days. I found it very strange that the cooked meat would not be
liable to worm  decomposition. Of course, at this time, I was clueless, but
i remember having used this "discovery" to reinforce my denial to eat the
cooked meat. This is, as far as I remember the first consciously affirmative
action I took in my young age  in the direction of instinctive nutrition.

Cheers
Denis