What Would a Neanderthal Eat?

Photograph: Yaymicro.com

For the answer, you can patronize Sauvage, a recently opened Berlin restaurant that specializes in “Paleolithic cuisine.” By that, Sauvage means dishes that use only organic unprocessed foods such as fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds. You know, the kind of stuff you would eat if all you had was a club, a bearskin, a strong stomach and a calendar that read One Million B.C.

No grains (the Paleolithic era apparently preceded the advent of farming), starches, dairy products or — especially — sugar (other than from raw honey). No bronto burgers like Fred Flintstone used to have either, in case you were wondering.

Fortunately, Sauvage assumes the invention of fire, so food does get cooked, presumably over open flames. That at least gives the chefs something to do besides chopping vegetables and carving up carcasses.

One wonders just how challenging such a restaurant can be for back-of-the-house culinary professionals, though. There are no intricate sauces to create, no exotic preparation techniques to show off with, no infusions to highlight, no roux, no glacé, no beurre-blanc, -noir or -noisette to sound Continental over. In fact, nothing at all that has to be described in French. And the only fusion comes from mixing nuts in with the berries.

Come to think of it, Sauvage has turned the most boring cuisine in world history into a concept. What a concept!