HOMO SAPIENS

​

Bone Marrow

Ingredients:  Long bone (femur) of cow

​

While actual human fossils are very rare, the remains of animals our ancestors hunted or scavenged are pretty common.  We know from many archaeological sites ancient peoples would crack open the long bones of animals for their delicious and nutritious marrow, and you can still find this in fancy restaurants today.  

​

Our species Homo sapiens are omnivores, meaning we eat both meat and plant material.  As shown by our teeth, we have both flat teeth for chewing plant materials and sharp teeth for tearing through flesh.  During the early parts of our evolution though, meat would have been hard to come by as we competed for those meat resources with lions, cheetahs, hyenas, bears and who knows what else.  

​

What probably happened early on is that we would come across a lion or a hyena kill and either scare them off somehow or wait until they were full and quickly go in a grab a few leg bones they left behind.  The bone marrow within long bones like the femur or the humerus is extremely nutritious, especially for an early Homo sapien that was constantly on the verge of starvation.  

​

We have now perfected the art of cooking, but back in the day I think the farthest a recipe for bone marrow would have gone is:  throw bone on fire, take bone off fire, crack bone open with round rock, eat marrow within.  

Today in fancy restaurants they’ll take the bone marrow out of the bone, season it thoroughly, cook it to perfection then put it back in the bone and serve it with toast or crackers for you to smother on.  I like to call bone marrow nature’s butter, out west they call it prairie butter.