A stew with more beef than mutton in it, chopped meat for
his evening meal, scraps for a Saturday, lentils on Friday, and a young pigeon
as a special delicacy for Sunday . . . --Miguel de
Cervantes (Don Quixote;
1605:25)
It's a fun product. When I meet someone at a party and tell
them where I work, they smile. People love hot dogs. --Bob Schwartz, VP of
Sales, Vienna Beef in Chicago (Jackson 1999:106; see below, Hot
dogs)
Flavor cue.
1. The usually pleasant aroma and taste of cooked animal flesh
(i.e., muscles and skin). 2. Intensely flavorful molecules
created a. as myoglobin, the red pigment of raw steak,
turns brown and a flavor-rich coating forms (as juices evaporate from the meat's
surface), and b. as the browning reaction releases
furans, pyrones, and other carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen
molecules which provide the complex oniony, nutty, fruity, chocolate, and
caramel-like tastes we prefer to the bland taste of uncooked meat and raw
vegetables (McGee 1990).
Usage I: The aroma of sizzling beefsteak basted with sage and garlic sauce is an irresistible chemical signal transmitted when a chef brushes the meat with seasonings and sears it with flame. According to McGee, "All cooked foods aspire to the [rich and flavorful] condition of fruit" (1990:304).
Usage II: In Nonverbal
World, the essence of charbroiled steak evokes an emotional desire to approach the aroma. Among
the most evocative of all chemical signals processed by the brain are those
emanating from meats and meaty consumer
products, such as the Big
Mac sandwich and fried Spam.
Evolution I. As did
late-Devonian amphibians, early mammals of the Cretaceous and early primates of
the Paleocene epoch passed through a predominantly flesh-eating stage.
Acting in accordance with a primeval chemical code, amphibians pursued
fish (and fellow amphibians), while mammals and primates
pursued mainly insects. With so many carnivores and
insectivores on the family tree, we respond to meats with an extreme
alertness, as if scripted to do so by the ancient code.
Evolution
II. "Scientists theorize that the shift to hunting and meat eating was a
key adaptation that let our ancestors spread beyond Africa and led to the
dramatic increase in brain size associated with our human lineage. This 'dietary
revolution,' as one paleontologist put it, could have changed the human facial
structure by reducing the size of the molars, which previously needed to be
large to chew tubers and raw vegetables. As the protruding jaw began to recede,
more of the skull could be used to house the brain. And a diet of fat-rich bone
marrow could lead to the development of the brain cells" (McCafferty
1999:22).
Hot dogs. 1. An estimated 20 billion
hot dogs are consumed in the U.S. each year (Jackson 1999:110). 2. "But
the hands-down wiener and still champion of frankfurter
flackery is the annual Fourth of July hot-dog eating contest at Coney Island . .
." (Jackson 1999:110; as of June 1999, the record was 19 dogs consumed in 12
minutes [Jackson 1999:112]).
Kebabs. "A huge kebab made with 1,500
chickens was cooked at this tourist resort [in Limassol, Cyprus] Sunday [June
10, 2001] in a bid to make the Guinness Book of Records" (Anonymous
2001:A3).
Media. According to Scientific American magazine,
in 1999 the per capita U.S. consumption of beef was 64.7 pounds (chicken = 49.2,
pork = 48.8; Anonymous 2000D).
Prehistory I. Two m.y.a. our first human ancestor, Homo habilis, wandered east Africa's arid savannah grasslands in search of ripe fruit, nuts, tubers, and berries--and small game, bird eggs, insects, and edible grubs. It is likely that Homo's original "hunting instinct" involved the corticomedial division of the amygdala, which plays a role in mammalian hunting psychology today (Carlson 1986:486).
Prehistory II. On the savannah, meat made up 20-to-30 percent of the
early human diet, as it did that of historical hunter-gatherers such as the
!Kung San Bushmen of Botswana.
Prehistory III. So appealing is the
taste of cooked meat that ". . . after early humans migrated into Australia and
the Americas, the heavyweight animals of these new continents were driven to
extinction within a few thousand years" (Anonymous 2001F:A1), according to
reports in Science (June 2001). Mammoths, camels, mastodons, and the
glyptodont, as well as giant sloths, snakes, lizards, birds and marsupials, were
hunted, cooked, and eaten to extinction, according to the now more widely
accepted "blitzkrieg model" of anthropologists.
RESEARCH
REPORT: A craving known as meat hunger is a "widespread
phenomenon among peoples living at a subsistence level [i.e., who are not
vegetarians by choice]" (Simoons 1994:6). (N.B.: In the
U.S., despite well-stocked produce displays, shoppers spend the largest portion
of their supermarket dollar on beef, chicken, fish,
and pork.)
Neuro-notes. 1. We crave
meaty taste because the amphibian
brain's hunger for flesh is older than the primate
brain's "acquired taste" for fruits and nuts. 2.
As it influenced the pursuit, handling, and killing of game, the amygdala also
stimulated the release of digestive juices in preparation for eating the kill.
Thus, today, hidden aggressiveness in the meat-eater's code makes a
sizzling steak more exciting than a bowl of fruit. This explains, in part, why
(when possible and affordable) meals throughout the world are planned around a
meat dish.
See also GLUTAMATE, HERBS & SPICES, SHELLFISH TASTE.
Copyright 1998 - 2016 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)
Photo of "Frankfurters" (December 20, 2009, at Costco in Spokane, Washington, USA; picture credit: Doreen K. Givens [copyright 2009])