17 July 2015

Book review: Catching Fire - How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), by Richard Wrangham, *****

Blogger learning to be human
Synopsis

Ever since Darwin and The Descent of Man, the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in Catching Fire, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution.

Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow.

When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a gender-based division of labor.

Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors’ diets, this book sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes".


Review

Cogito ergo sum, said Descartes. Coquo ergo sum is the gist of this book. According to largely accepted scientific research, Homo erectus sprung up from the earlier Australopithecines by eating meat.The transition from homo erectus to homo sapiens, us, is owed to a major innovation: cooking.

Levi-Strauss, in his The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a science of mythology (Pimlico), wrote that fire marks the transition from nature to culture. Few would dispute that the cuisine of any nation is a major trademark of its cultural complexity and sophistication. And cooking, in its many diverse methods (grilling, steaming, boiling, baking etc) is an essential part of any major cuisine in the world.

Our bodies evolved because we learned to cook: besides a smaller stomach and larger brain, we lost our climbing ability (no need to climb if fire can protect camp on the ground) in favor of better running skills. And we have much smaller teeth compared to our ancestors who did not cook.

Cooking also played an essential role in making mankind a carnivore, as it makes it efficient to digest and store large amount of animal proteins in a way that would have been unthinkable with just raw meat. But for vegetarians there is some consolation as well: cooking made it possible to digest many more types of roots.

Finally, this book delves on the social implications of cooking: how it shaped the man/woman relationship in the house, and how it made it easier to use meals as a social event. Some cultures have peculiar (to us) habits: among the Bonerif of Papua, a woman will sleep with every man in the village except her brothers before finally getting married; but the moment she feeds a man she is committed and irrevocably considered his wife!



In the UK you can buy it here:



In France and Belgium



In the US and worldwide buy it here



If you feel inspired to become more human, consider buying one of these books about cooking!

Film review: Accidental Tourist (1989) by Lawrence Kasdan, ****


Synopsys

William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis. An author of travel books who is coping with his son's death and his wife's departure has his outlook on life brightened by an offbeat dog trainer. Davis won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress from one of four total nominations. 1988/color/121 min/PG.


Review

This movie is not really about traveling and when I was done watching it I did not plan to review it for this blog. But then I watched it again and I thought it is ALSO about traveling, and not just because the protagonist is a travel guide writer. In fact, that has nothing to do with it. It is a movie about traveling because there are so  many of us who are accidental tourists, though many of us do not even recognize we are.

How many times we go places not because we want to but because we have to? Or for no reason at all? And yet it is part of the innate curiosity of a real traveler to explore new destinations for no reason other than the fact that they exist and we came to know that they are there.

Not only Macon did not want to be a travel writer, but he hates traveling. He's got a job to do however, so he goes places.  He writes guide books for people who, like him, would rather never leave home. And his books are popular precisely because that's the way his readers feel as well. "While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put." Macon is a traveling armchair, really, and yet a trip to Paris (a place he'd rather avoid and where he looks for American fast food, while others would kill to have a chance to visit) will define the rest of his life. Is it all by accident?



16 July 2015

Book Review: Geography of Attraction (2015), by Ali May *****



Review

This is, in its own peculiar way, a travel book, which is why this review has a place in this blog. When I asked the author what his new book was about, his answer was simple: fxxxing around the world. The reader is led from ultra-conservative Iran to super-emancipated Denmark, with stopovers in Italian islands and European capitals. Along the way, we are led through many a decadent tasting of delicacies from around the world and lots and lots of drinking, all of which leads like a funnel to the inevitability of physical attraction.

Whether the protagonist of each story is him, or someone he knows, he wouldn't say. Maybe that's the most intriguing feature of the book. It's part fiction, but not all of it. It could all be real. Some stories are clearly autobiographical. I hope, for the author's good sake, much of it is.

For the rest of us what is left is good reading entertainment and the ability to draw inspiration. My favorite is the one about new year's eve celebration, when at exactly midnight she sat ... oh well I'd better not spoil it here.

You can buy the kindle version here on Amazon.uk



In the US and internationally find it here



Or contact the author here to buy the hard copy.