The First Flame: Uncovering the Beginnings of Human Fire Use and Cooking

The English Language Café and Multi Kulti Collective invite you to the next edition of our weekly idea exchange series: “The First Flame: Uncovering the Beginnings of Human Fire Use and Cooking” with Dr. Kata Horváth

The use of fire is one of mankind's greatest inventions. It provided us with warmth and light, it helped us to transform the land, but most importantly it gave us something completely new: cooked food. Cooked food, which has a higher calorie content per unit weight, requires less energy to chew and less time to digest, leading to unprecedented changes in human evolution. For the first time, we were able to consume a caloric surplus that allowed exponential growth in brain size and neuron number. It seems that cooking made us the humans we are today. How could we have first begun to interact with fire? And are we the only species that can benefit from flames? In her talk Dr. Horváth will present the cooking hypothesis of human evolution and her research into how animals interact with fire around the world.

Dr. Horváth is Hungarian. She received her PhD in Experimental Psychology in 2023. She is currently working on the evolution of intelligence, and the origins of fire use with researchers at Lund University, Sweden. She moved to Bulgaria about a year ago and now lives in Vratsa in the North-West. Before, she lived in New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and around Europe.

Following Dr. Horváth’s presentation, we will enjoy signature alcohol-free beverages prepared by the ELC’s expert bartender, Hristo, and continue the evening with engaging small-group conversations as part of our English idea exchange.

The event will be held entirely in English.