Richard Wrangham, at Harvard University, in his book Catching Fire (Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books, 2009. ISBN 0-465-01362-7) puts forward his "cooking hypothesis." He identifies a time period, about 1.8 million years ago, for the first human control of fire. Once humans controlled fire, it was not long until people discovered they could make food more palatable by cooking it. Reflecting on Wrangham's writing, I imagine human evolution moving on its belly (as the Army reportedly does as well). What a nice thought to imagine humans as, essentially, gourmands.
