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I've long wondered if Europeans and their descendants have evolved a more intense affinity toward meat that other cultures have, by virtue of having a lower population density for so much longer than Asians have -- thus, they could "afford" a less efficient diet rich in meat.

We know that tastes are related to genetics. Most famously, is the understanding that Asians dislike cilantro at a much higher rate than Africans, and we know a single gene is heavily responsible for the aversion to the specific aldehydes in cilantro.

It's not crazy to think that humans may have a "carnivorous" gene, which controls ones love of meat.

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It wasn’t too long ago that Europeans were mostly peasants working the fields, including my ancestors. They rarely ate meat and if they did it would be on a holiday or very special occasion. Killing a chicken means you can’t get eggs and it’s the same for milk producing animals like goats, sheep, or cattle. Not to mention you couldn’t hunt on the lords land. I’d say it’s been less than 200 years since Europeans could afford to eat meat.

The article is comparing Indian food to food that was only eaten by the European elite. I don’t think it’s an apples to apples comparison. It does give us a history of western food as we eat it today. Lots of good food history comes from the haute cuisine of the 1700s to early 1900s.

and it wasn't too long before that when we hunted the megafauna out of existence... probably took us a while, too. Orders of magnitude more time than the duration of agriculture.

When they talk about rich meaty Indian curries, that was the food of the elite as well.

The difference is that Asia has had intense centralized agricultural economies for something like 6,000+ years while (north/west) Europe was primarily pastoral until around the Roman empire.

Agriculture spread throughout Europe during the Neolithic, like the rest of the Mediterranean basin (and possibly towards India), and brought along massive deforestation and demographic growth. Those were deeply agriculture-centric societies far before the Indo-Europeans came around, not even mentioning Romans.

And in what parallel universe agriculture was centralized in Asia in 4000 BC ?

The big advantage of Asia was double or even triple crops.

It took a long time for agriculture to spread. Crops that work in a Mediterranean climate do not work in Northern Europe. You have to breed new varieties. That can take hundreds to thousands of years. Heck, it’s still hard to grow certain kinds of fruit up here in the rainy parts of Oregon and we know how genetics and inheritance work.

You're thinking in hundreds of years, while I'm talking in the tens of thousands of years.

We know that neanderthals ate a diet that consisted of 80% or more meat, while humans had a much more varied diet. We also know that neanderthals did contribute to European human DNA. A genetic affinity toward the taste of meat it certainly a reasonable thesis.

Tens of thousands of years? Give us proof that even 200 years ago Europeans ate more meat than Asians as you claim.

I'm not going to wade into this petty European vs Asian pissing contest but I'll offer that there was plenty of meat in the Viking diet (roughly 700-1100).

> I've long wondered if Europeans and their descendants have evolved a more intense affinity toward meat

European diets changed drastically after their discovery of the new world and the introduction of grains such as potatoes and corn from the new world to Europe. Due to the introduction of these new starches, Europeans were able to diversify away from wheat and also cultivate food exclusively for animal consumption - something that led eventually to an increase in meat consumption.

I thought the difference was that Europe is dairy upland county, the land dictates the diet. Much of Yorkshire is unsuitable for arable farmland for example - but great for sheep, goats, and cows. Thus a cheese and meat diet. Same for alpine regions, parts of Germany etc.

Leading to genetic differences in lactose tolerance.

At that point in time I think the main use of meat animals was converting unfarmable undigestable grassland biomass to edible meat. Not all land is farmable. And given the cold winters wool justifies itself nicely over flax linens.

Notably when previously vegetarian peasants become wealthier they tend to add meat to their diet implyinh their previous diet was involuntary vegetarianism - they wanted it but couldn't afford it.

Depends on your definition of "Asian" :)

People in the Indian sub-continent eat cilantro heavily and use in various ways. Thai food uses cilantro a lot, and I believe it is also present in Middle eastern food, though I'm not 100% sure.

>Europeans... by virtue of having a lower population density for so much longer than Asians

I can't find any good numbers for historical demographics beyond about 100 years ago, but this sounds backwards. i.e. I think Europe would have been more dense for most of history, especially factoring in arable land.

I'm suspicious of the genetic taste for cilantro. In Asia only Koreans and Japanese tend to dislike it while Chinese, Thais, and Vietnamese eat tons of it. Koreans and Japanese have other strong tasting herbs like minari and shiso that they happily eat. I'm not convinced it isn't just culture and familiarity.

There is a specific flavour (or flavours) in cilantro that can only be tasted by certain people. That ability is genetically linked. The flavour apparently tastes like soap. Similarly the ability to smell the really offensive odour of natto is also genetically linked.

However, I think it's a stretch to go from that (the ability to detect certain substances) to the idea that all tastes are genetically linked in a substantial way. For example the rate of ability to detect the soap flavour in cilantro is quite low (between 4-14 percent of the population based on random google searching) -- geographical variations in that ability might affect it's use in regional cuisine, but it's low enough that it might not. Most food doesn't have any similar obnoxious flavours, so I think you are correct that regional variation is more cultural than anything else. For example, the peoples of Korea and Japan are not really so different (and are even very, very close geographically), but Korean food tends to be incredibly spicy while Japanese food is decidedly not spicy.

There's a SNP which affects if one finds cilantro to taste like soap[0]. For many people where it tastes like soap, they don't enjoy cilantro. I'e come across people who profess it to taste like soap and like that, but not many.

[0] https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs72921001

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