<p>Cooking large meals represented a breakthrough in human evolution, both because cooked foods proved easier to digest and support larger brains and because the occasions supported more complex social organization. </p>
If you’re cooking a meal for Thanksgiving or just showing up to feast, you’re part of a long human history — one that's older than our own species. Some scientists estimate our early human cousins may have been using fire to cook their food almost 2 million years ago, long…