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Overview
We humans eat a wide array of plants and animals, but unlike other omnivores we eat with our minds as much as our stomachs. This thoughtful relationship with food is part of what makes us a unique species, and makes culinary cultures diverse. Not even our closest primate relatives think about food in the way Homo sapiens does. We are superomnivores whose palates reflect the natural history of our species.
Drawing on the work of food historians and chefs, anthropologists and neuroscientists, Allen starts out with the diets of our earliest ancestors, explores cooking’s role in our evolving brain, and moves on to the preoccupations of contemporary foodies. The Omnivorous Mind delivers insights into food aversions and cravings, our compulsive need to label foods as good or bad, dietary deviation from “healthy” food pyramids, and cross-cultural attitudes toward eating (with the French, bien sûr, exemplifying the pursuit of gastronomic pleasure).
To explain, for example, the worldwide popularity of crispy foods, Allen considers first the food habits of our insect-eating relatives. He also suggests that the sound of crunch may stave off dietary boredom by adding variety to sensory experience. Or perhaps fried foods, which we think of as bad for us, interject a frisson of illicit pleasure. When it comes to eating, Allen shows, there’s no one way to account for taste.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780674055728 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Harvard University Press |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2012 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 328 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 6: Categories: Good Food, Bad Food, Yes Food, No Food
Soft-boiled eggs
Beef liver aux fines herbes
Cold meat
Swiss cheese
—Menu of September 1, 1870, Battle of Sevigny, Auguste Escoffier
In the late 19th century, Auguste Escoffier became the embodiment of the complexity and sophistication associated with classical French cuisine. He promoted and popularized this vision of French food primarily through the kitchens and dining rooms of the Ritz Hotel chain. Many years before, however, the young Auguste Escoffier served as an army cook during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). In his memoir, Escoffier describes in great detail the lengths he went to to make sure that his men, and especially his officers, were able to enjoy as high a standard of cuisine as possible under the trying circumstances. In addition to the basic military stores of tinned meat and fish, Escoffier raided the countryside and village markets for sources of fresh meat, poultry, eggs, vegetables, and herbs. Suckling pigs were obtained and quickly converted into pâtés, which he called les pâtés du siège de Metz after the pivotal battle of the war.
Cooking and coping with the privations of battle could not have been easy for Escoffier. Yet, it is clear that he managed to maintain his sense of what a meal should be, despite the conditions. The menu above, one of several battle meal menus he provided in his memoir, is a manifestation of the mental template for “meal” that Escoffier carried in his mind. The reality was a meal composed of eggs obtained locally, left over beef and liver from the previous night’s dinner, herbs collected on the go, and some cheese. More than likely, it was not served elegantly, in courses, but on a single tin plate. Yet, for Escoffier, it is clear that the four separate components of the meal could be categorized into courses: a starter, a salad, a main, and a cheese course/dessert.
For Escoffier, this exercise in categorization was part of what made this collection of edibles a meal. In recording this and other wartime meals in his memoir in formal menu form, Escoffier raised them to a higher level than simple military grub. He put these humble repasts on equal footing with the extraordinarily complicated meals he later prepared for royalty and other celebrities. Escoffier retrospectively fashioned these simple menus to show that he cared about and put great thought and effort into his wartime cooking. Although he was limited by raw materials and primitive conditions, he did not abandon his principles or his training. He did not stray from his mental template of a meal.
One of the basic categories that all humans employ is that between food and non-food. No one eats everything in the environment that can be consumed and digested by a human. It seems to me that Escoffier is an example of taking this distinction one level higher: he makes it clear that he provided food for his men and not simply fuel. Escoffier’s battlefield cooking endeavored to go beyond mere sustenance, despite the wartime conditions. Escoffier worked to turn the results of his foraging into a cultural product, a creative expression of his mind, rather than leave them as a collection of nutritive substances. Central to this act of re-classification was classification itself, in placing the different foods into their ordered places in the menu.
Table of Contents
Introduction I
1 Crispy 8
2 The Two-Legged, Large-Brained, Small-Faced, Superomnivorous Ape 40
3 Food and the Sensuous Brain 74
4 Eating More, Eating Less 108
5 Memories of Food and Eating 149
6 Categories: Good Food, Bad Food, Yes Food, No Food 186
7 Food and the Creative Journey 221
8 Theory of Mind, Theory of Food? 255
Notes 273
acknowledgments 303
Index 305
What People are Saying About This
John Allen combines evolution and modern biology to produce a feast of fresh ideas about our eating habits. The Omnivorous Mind is a fascinating reflection on the deep meanings of food.
— Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human