What made man a man? What features of development, behavior, interaction with the surrounding reality distinguished it from the animal world? How did an ordinary mammal come to an exceptional position on the planet? Anna Pavlovskaya comes to the conclusion that food became one of the determining factors in the formation of man and the foundations of his existence. In a word, man is an animal that has learned to cook and thereby taken the first step in taming nature. This book is dedicated to the food of ancient man, the methods of its preparation and storage, the rituals that accompanied its consumption, the traditions and beliefs associated with all this and, of course, the social function of food. Written on a variety of materials, it summarizes data from history, literature, ethnography, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, anthropology. Anna Pavlovskaya - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Regional Studies, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Regional Studies, Moscow State University.