Now the brain is an expensive organ to maintain; it usurps a disproportionate amount of the energy (glucose) extracted from food. So I knew natural selection would not have favored the development of a large brain in spider monkeys unless the animals gained a rather pronounced benefit from the enlargement. Considering that the most striking difference between howler and spider monkeys is their diet, I proposed that the bigger brain of spider monkeys may have been favored because it facilitated the development of mental skills that enhanced success in maintaining a diet centered on ripe fruit.*
This is one of many passages from the scientific literature that emphasize our eons-long love affair with all things fruity. As you can see it goes way, way back and may have had something to do with how we grew the big brains that eventually engendered the big ideas – like the infield fly rule or the Electoral College – that make human life so interesting.
I’m thinking about this because next week I will record a radio spot for America’s Test Kitchen Radio on minerality in wine, and so having successfully pitched the idea have now to think how to approach the subject. My working hypothesis is that while an appreciation of minerality is an acquired taste, our inclination to be seduced by fruit is entirely innate.
It’s fruit, I propose, that brings novice wine drinkers on board in the first instance. It’s only later that some push on to an appreciation of other things wine has up its sleeve – minerality among them.
I don’t plan to address the very mysterious problem of how anyone acquires a taste for something he starts out being repelled by – a subject that seems quiet beyond my neural capacity. Whether more canned peaches in my school lunch might have remedied this, I can’t say.
I do know I like rocks in my wine and interesting things to read. This week’s trawl pulled in . . .
- A story about how the French are in the midst of a shift from AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) to AOP (appellation d’origine protégée) and from Vins de Pays to IGP (indication géographique protégée). Read about it here: http://goo.gl/pTdmp
- A really nice piece on the history of barrel-making and its connection to the wine industry. How barrels are made; the effect of oak on wine: http://goo.gl/n2QVf
- A local blog dedicated solely to acquainting us with odd little wine grapes: http://fringewine.blogspot.com/
- An interesting report of a tasting and chat with Prince of Orange Josko Gravner
*From Katherine Milton, “Diet and Primate Evolution,” Scientific American Aug 1993.