> “If it was only cultural, it should be different in some cultures. It has to be some kind of biological factor, whether it’s hormones or evolution,” says Sorby.
By this logic, the use of fire for cooking is "some kind of hormones or evolution thing", not culture. (Or are there any cultures that never cook?)
> By this logic, the use of fire for cooking is "some kind of hormones or evolution thing", not culture.
That's not impossible at this point: humans don't fare that well on completely raw diet with studies of raw vegan diets show increases in amenorrhoea, underweightness, dental erosion and lower bone densities (raw non-vegan diet being possibly even riskier due to high concerns of food poisoning and food-borne diseases). Richard Wrangham has argued that modern humans are in fact obligate cooks (though he's also argued that modern human evolution was triggered by cooking, I know most anthropologists disagree with the latter, not sure about the former, could be an interesting question to ask in /r/askscience)
OK, but if you raise a group of people somewhere in the middle of nowhere on 100% raw food, I'd hazard the guess that they'll sooner die of malnutrition or diseases than instinctively approach some fire and start cooking.
And if this isn't culture then I don't know what is.
By this logic, the use of fire for cooking is "some kind of hormones or evolution thing", not culture. (Or are there any cultures that never cook?)