Delicious
The Evolution of Flavor and How It Made Us Human
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Narrated by:
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Russell Bentley
About this listen
This delightful audiobook narrated by Russell Bentley offers a savory account of how the pursuit of delicious foods shaped human evolution
Nature, it has been said, invites us to eat by appetite and rewards by flavor. But what exactly are flavors? Why are some so pleasing while others are not? Delicious is a supremely entertaining foray into the heart of such questions.
With generous helpings of warmth and wit, Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez offer bold new perspectives on why food is enjoyable and how the pursuit of delicious flavors has guided the course of human history. They consider the role that flavor may have played in the invention of the first tools, the extinction of giant mammals, the evolution of the world’s most delicious and fatty fruits, the creation of beer, and our own sociality. Along the way, you will learn about the taste receptors you didn't even know you had, the best way to ferment a mastodon, the relationship between Paleolithic art and cheese, and much more.
Blending irresistible storytelling with the latest science, Delicious is a deep history of flavor that will transform the way you think about human evolution and the gustatory pleasures of the foods we eat.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Robert Dunn and Monica Sanchez (P)2021 Princeton University PressListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"An utter delight. Delicious is a gastronomic tapestry of far-flung anecdotes, science, and history expertly woven into a story of the profound significance of taste and aroma for humans and other species. I relished every page." (Joanna E. Lambert, University of Colorado Boulder)
"Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez write with the creativity of great chefs and the precision of food biochemists. This book is a feast that will not only stimulate your mind but also excite your senses. No book better brings the natural and gastronomic sciences to life while instilling us with wonder better than this one." (Gary Paul Nabhan, father of the local food movement, author of Food, Genes, and Culture)
"A revolutionary look at the way our appetite for the delicious made us human. Taking readers on an exciting journey into the past, Dunn and Sanchez reveal how and why we love to eat the things we do and the impact this has had on human biology and culture. You will never look at food the same way again." (Vanessa Woods, New York Times best-selling author of Survival of the Friendliest)
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Story
Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mothers' skin.
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Ruined it at the end
- By Kimberly Ames on 12-07-17
By: Bill Schutt
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The Book of General Ignorance
- By: John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best seller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.
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Interesting.
- By A. Hawkbird on 12-07-08
By: John Mitchinson, and others
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Short Course in Beer
- An Introduction to Tasting and Talking About the World's Most Civilized Beverage
- By: Lynn Hoffman
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Straightforward and opinionated, Short Course in Beer is designed to turn the novice beer lover into an expert imbiber and the casual drinker into an enthusiast. Readers will come to understand the beauty of beer and the sources of its flavor, as well as learn which beers are worth our time and which are not. With tongue in cheek, the author examines beer's historical connections to the Crusades, the Hundred Years' War, and modern-day soccer riots. He talks frankly (and joyfully) about the effects of alcohol on the body and brain, he defends beer from its enemies, and ushers it out of the frat house and into the dining room.
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An Ok Beer Book
- By AppleCedAR on 10-21-13
By: Lynn Hoffman
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Lesser Beasts
- A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig
- By: Mark Essig
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril.
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Virtuous Carnivors?
- By David on 04-14-16
By: Mark Essig
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Proof
- The Science of Booze
- By: Adam Rogers
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In Proof, Adam Rogers reveals alcohol as a miracle of science, going deep into the pleasures of making and drinking booze—and the effects of the latter. The people who make and sell alcohol may talk about history and tradition, but alcohol production is really powered by physics, molecular biology, organic chemistry, and a bit of metallurgy—and our taste for those products is a melding of psychology and neurobiology.
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Great listening to all about booze
- By Atila on 08-02-14
By: Adam Rogers
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Steak
- One Man's Search for the World's Tastiest Piece of Beef
- By: Mark Schatzker
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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"Of all the meats, only one merits its own structure. There is no such place as a lamb house or a pork house, but even a small town can have a steak house." So begins Mark Schatzker's ultimate carnivorous quest. Fed up with one too many mediocre steaks, the intrepid journalist set out to track down, define, and eat the perfect specimen.
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Journey into a deeper appreciation for beef
- By John Madany on 10-08-20
By: Mark Schatzker
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Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You
- A Lively Tour Through the Dark Side of the Natural World
- By: Dan Riskin
- Narrated by: Dan Riskin
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin explains, it's also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be.
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Just a bunch of random animal behaviors.
- By Goddess on 05-18-23
By: Dan Riskin
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Gulp
- Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. Roach takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: The questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts?
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Funtastic Voyage
- By Mel on 04-05-13
By: Mary Roach
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I, Mammal
- By: Liam Drew
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A list of the attributes that define a mammal is a ragbag of things - fur, live birth, three bones in the middle ear, a brain whose two halves are robustly joined together.... But this curious collection of features contain the roots of all the biology that makes us what we are: monkeys with massive brains who parent extensively, enjoy sport and think lots. Which is to say, what makes us mammals makes us human.
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Who knew?
- By Fitmen on 04-25-18
By: Liam Drew
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The Hidden Life of Trees
- What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
- By: Peter Wohlleben
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known. In The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben puts groundbreaking scientific discoveries into a language everyone can relate to.
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Tree Hugger
- By Darwin8u on 04-18-19
By: Peter Wohlleben
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Domesticated
- Evolution in a Man-Made World
- By: Richard C. Francis
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Without our domesticated plants and animals, human civilization as we know it would not exist. We would still be living at subsistence level as hunter-gatherers if not for domestication. It is no accident that the cradle of civilization - the Middle East - is where sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and cats commenced their fatefully intimate associations with humans.
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Well, what did you expect?
- By Mark on 03-25-16
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
What listeners say about Delicious
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ellie
- 08-10-21
Cue the Eye Roll
I loved learning all the tidbits and trivia in this book. In fact my family would say I enjoyed learning a bit too much because I was constantly sharing the amazing and intriguing facts with them and they grew tired of hearing “in the book Delicious…” soon each time I started with that I got a simultaneous eye roll from all the members. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but it was a great education for me.
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- Lucy A. Pithecus
- 10-14-22
Delicious for the gut and the brain
Reading this book is a great delight - it paints pictures of how our ancestors consumed particular food (yum!) and assembles the puzzles of why (ah-ha!) It makes my mouth water when describing the flavors of meat and fruit and triggers my mind to turn when asking questions about why we eat certain things in specific ways.
My favorite chapter is "The Forbidden Fruit". It starts with talking about how delicious the animal meat tasted based on their diets (fruits, nuts, spices, etc.). It then talks about some strong-flavored, large-shelled fruits that no other animals want to eat. Why do those trees spend so much energy to produce fruits that no local animals can eat and carry their seeds? Because the large animals that these trees grow their fruits for had gone extinct due to human hunting. But how could those trees survive without the large animals eating and disseminating the seeds? Because there was a replacement - the human. A juicy and delicious chapter to digest with an interconnected puzzle to solve.
If you like this book, also check out Robert Dunn's other books, especially "Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live" (2018).
If you like food-themed books, check out "Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on Us" by George Zaidan (2020), which also talks about spices, among other things, but from the nutrition perspective. You might also like books from Michael Pollan (who talks about food from the positive side - beautiful, wholesome food) and Michael Moss (who talks about food from the negative side - addictive junk food).
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kristen J McCardel
- 06-18-23
Meh
Narrator has a very annoying speaking rhythm and places inflections strangely, so you have to decipher some sentences for meaning that would probably be clear if you were reading a hardcopy. Narrator also mispronounces many scientific terms and even place names, which is very distracting. Content seems interesting, but there's not enough substance to really justify a full book on the premise, and authors' assertions are not always well supported by evidence but rather are selected to fit the narrative they've decided to create on the topic.
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