If meat eating helped our species survive and then thrive across the globe, then it’s understandable why many peoples fell into the habit, and why meat would have a significant place in human culture and tradition But the deepest satisfaction in eating meat probably comes from instinct and biology Before we became creatures of culture, nutritional wisdom was built into our sensory system, our taste buds, odor receptors, and brain Our taste buds in particular are designed to help us recognize and pursue important nutrients: we have receptors for essential salts, for energyrich sugars, for amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, for energy-bearing molecules called nucleotides Raw meat triggers all these tastes, because muscle cells are relatively fragile, and because they’re biochemically very active The cells in a plant leaf or seed, by contrast, are protected by tough cell walls that prevent much of their contents from being freed by chewing, and their protein and starch are locked up in inert storage granules Meat is thus mouth-filling in a way that few plant foods are Its rich aroma when cooked comes from the same biochemical complexity Food Words: Animals and Their Meats As the novelist Walter Scott and others pointed out long ago, the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066 caused a split in the English vocabulary for common meats The Saxons had their own Germanic names for the animals — ox, steer, cow, heifer, and calf; sheep, ram, wether, ewe, and lamb; swine, hog, gilt, sow, and pig — and named their flesh by attaching “meat of” to the animal name When French became the language of the English nobility in the centuries following the Conquest, the animal names survived in the countryside, but the prepared meats were rechristened in the fashion of the court cooks: the first ... biochemical complexity Food Words: Animals and Their Meats As the novelist Walter Scott and others pointed out long ago, the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066 caused a split in the English vocabulary for common meats... named their flesh by attaching “meat of? ?? to the animal name When French became the language of the English nobility in the centuries following the Conquest, the animal names survived in the countryside, but the prepared meats were rechristened... English vocabulary for common meats The Saxons had their own Germanic names for the animals — ox, steer, cow, heifer, and calf; sheep, ram, wether, ewe, and lamb; swine, hog, gilt, sow, and pig — and named their flesh by attaching “meat of? ?? to