Investigator Sally Shelton sends this observation that appeared on a paleontologists discussion listserv:
I’m often amazed that people on this list seem unaware of some of the classic literature… Culinary phylogenetics was addressed in an issue of AIR way back in 1998. You can find a pdf here.
The discussant refers to Joe Staton‘s study “Tastes Like Chicken,” published in volume 4, number 4 of the Annals of Improbable Research, and which begins with the statement
The field of culinary evolution faces one great dilemma: why do most cooked, exotic meats taste like cooked Gallus gallus, the domestic chicken?
A chart from the study is reproduced below.
