Kevin

“Farming may have been prompted by social competition, as rival groups competed to host the most lavish feasts; this might explain why, in some parts of the world, luxury foods appear to have been domesticated before staples.”
― Tom Standage, An Edible History of Humanity

“The short answer is that they did not realize what was happening until it was too late.”
― Tom Standage, An Edible History of Humanity

“Similarly, Basques are assumed to be the most direct descendants of hunter-gatherers, for two reasons. First, the Basque language bears no resemblance to European languages descended from proto–Indo-European, the language family imported into Europe along with farming, and instead appears to date back to the Stone Age. (Several Basque words for tools begin with “aitz,” the word for stone, which suggests that the words date from a time when stone tools were in use.) Second, there are several Basque-specific genetic variations that are not found in other Europeans.”
― Tom Standage, An Edible History of Humanity

“In effect, hunter-gatherers work two days a week and have five-day weekends.”
― Tom Standage, An Edible History of Humanity