Cooking is a culturally learned skill, not an innate instinct

Evidence

What is often underemphasized in this account is that food-processing techniques are primarily products of cultural evolution. Cooking, for example, is not something we instinctually know how to do, or even can easily figure out. If you don’t believe me, go outside and make a fire without using any modern technology. Rub two sticks together, make a fire drill, find naturally occurring flint or quartz, etc. Put that big brain to work. Maybe some fire instincts designed by natural selection to solve this recurrent dilemma of our ancestral environments will kick in and guide you. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 226

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘go make a fire yourself’ challenge could anchor an essay on how routinely we mistake deep cultural accumulation for individual ingenuity.
• CANDY: Appealing everyday challenge fact: most of us could not start a fire with stone tools despite our big brains.
• XREF: connects to: The capacity for violence is a learned, inheritable skill not a subcultural trait — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 90; Acceptance of violence is a transmitted skill, not a cultural trait; Listening is a cultivated skill, not an automatic sense, and it shapes culture — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 481 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Cooking evolved culturally and reshaped human digestive anatomy and function #expands (0.85) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 224
• Urban reading skills are learned, not innate products of culture. #expands (0.80) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 548
• Listening is a cultivated skill, not an automatic sense, and it shapes culture #expands (0.78) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 481
• Acceptance of violence is a transmitted skill, not a cultural trait #expands (0.75)
• Skill-based knowledge of place is transmitted through apprenticeship, not lessons #expands (0.74) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1326
• The capacity for violence is a learned, inheritable skill not a subcultural trait #expands (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 90