[whatabackend]

Cooking is so straightforward that it would be astonishing if it weren't discovered. There is a fire in the jungle; hungry humans discover a cooked chicken near the perimeter and realize it was the hot fire that caused it to smell and taste so good. Next time, they go to a fire, capture it and control it to cook some meat. From here, it's monkey see monkey do and the rest is history.

[mrob]

Why would it smell and taste unusually good before cooking was invented? Isn't it more likely that appreciation for the taste of cooked food evolved because cooked food is safer and more nutritious? If there's no cooked food there's no reason for this preference to evolve.

[koolba]

It may be the stronger smell or the faster delivery of particulates of burnt fat through the air.

Dogs, wolves, and bears can’t cook or start fires but all of them are attracted to the smell of cooked food as well. You could argue that dogs and maybe wolves co-evolved that preference alongside ours, but that doesn’t hold up for bears.

[BoiledCabbage]

Are bears attracted to the smell of cooked food? Or just attracted to the smell of food, and cooking is how most people treat food out in the wilderness?

[peteradio]

Why come did bears evolve to steal my pickinickbasket them?

[pjc50]

This is the classic HN comment about how easy it was to invent something in retrospect, but applied to fire.

(If it's so easy, why do none of the other ape species do it? How long before you get an accidental cooked chicken, not an incinerated one?)

[sn41]

[deleted]

[cimmanom]

Chimps are also omnivorous and eat other mammals.