Two thousand years have passed since the Romans belched their way through hundred-course banquets of peacock brains, flamingo tongues and elephant ears, slipping discreetly into vom-itoria to stick feathers down their throats when their bellies grew too tight. Two whole millennia—yet still the Romans reign supreme as masters of gluttony. Is this what we call progress? It is an especially shocking state of affairs when one considers that the Romans had not a shred of scientific know-how, whereas we have put men on the Moon and robots onto Mars. But never fear: appetite scientists with names like Rolls, Grill, Cone and Butter have been picking away at the problem of eating behaviour, stuffing journals to the gills with reports on chemicals and genes that impel us to shovel meat, potatoes and pudding down our gullets.
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