Fire and cooking
Heat changes digestibility, safety, flavor and social time; the chronology of habitual cooking remains debated.
Open food dossier →EVOLUTION · TECHNOLOGY · MEMORY · POWER
We cooked
ourselves human.
Food connects biology with everyday life: energy, microbes, tools, trade, labor, identity, pleasure and inequality.
Hearths and households
Cooking creates places where labor, care, teaching, status and memory become visible.
Open food dossier →
Grinding, pounding and fermentation
Processing plants and using microbes widened the range of foods people could eat long before industrial food.
Open food dossier →
Bread, beer and grain states
Stored cereals support dense settlements and taxation while increasing labor and nutritional risk.
Open food dossier →
Milk and gene–culture evolution
Dairying created selection for adult lactase persistence in some populations, with multiple genetic solutions.
Open food dossier →
Spice, salt and preservation
Preservation and sensory preference connect cuisine to empires, migration, labor and ecology.
Open food dossier →
Columbian food worlds
Maize, potato, cassava, tomato, cacao and livestock reshaped diets, populations and landscapes globally.
Open food dossier →
Industrial food systems
Refrigeration, fertilizer, processing and logistics reduce some risks while creating new health and ecological costs.
Open food dossier →
Recipes as evidence
Recipes change with ingredients, tools, knowledge and substitutions. They have histories that cannot be reduced to a timeless national tradition.
Open food dossier →