Join NC State biologist and professor Rob Dunn and author Reem Kassis for a conversation about Delicious, a book that Dunn co-authored with Monica Sanchez. Delicious retells the story of humans from the perspective of flavor. Using insights from food science, neuroscience, anthropology and literally a dozen other fields, Dunn and Sanchez argue that flavor has been central to human evolution, prehistory and history. Dunn and co-author Sanchez make this argument in a way that simultaneously offers new context to the pleasures (or displeasures) each of us experiences every day around food. This latter element of the book has made conversations with chefs to be particularly rewarding.
Kassis, author of The Arabesque Table: Contemporary Recipes from the Arab World, is a Palestinian writer whose work focuses on the intersection of food with culture, history and politics. Kassis' book, The Palestinian Table, won the Guild of Food Writers First Book Award and a Gourmand World Cookbook Award and was a James Beard Best International Cookbook Award finalist and an NPR Best Book.