In September 1991, Ötzi the Iceman was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps near the border to Austria. Ötzi is to date the oldest natural preserved mummy found in Europe, estimated to be nearly 5,300 years old. When archeologist examined the mummy they discovered 59 separate tattoos made of simple black lines making him also the earliest recorded tattooed man.  So old in fact, civilization was only then beginning to develop written language.

Ötzi’s tattoos were composed of the charcoal and soot from a wood fire, most likely the same fire he used to stay warm at night and cook his dinner.

Many argue that when man began to cook his food it was then “the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew” ¹ the foundation for the modern man today.

Yet given tattoos show up so early in human existence, there is something that came first that truly makes us who we are- that seemingly insane human instinct to experiment.  Picture the first time that primitive man, keeping warm around the fire thought to thrust meat from the days kill into the flames.  The reaction of his primitive man friends as they all grunted and screamed about, what an idiot! He was wasting precious food!  Better still the gloating of our ancient innovator as he watched his peers have to admit it tasted better hot. The same senseless fit of wild inspiration taking hold of another cave dweller the first time they had the urge to sharpen a stick on a rock, rub it in the remnants of last night’s fire and then repeatedly stab themselves.

Tattoos and cooking are forever linked to the most primordial symbols of human existence, fire.  That alone is enough to capture our minds, but what captures our spirit is truly what makes us human, that crazy human impulse to experiment and express ourselves. These traits are what drive success in both tattooing and cooking, being outlaw innovators succumbing to sudden urges to do something seemingly ridiculous even to the ridicule of our fellow but that have the potential to forever change how we perceive our world.

With that, we would like to dedicate this project to those crazy souls that sacrifice their 
blood sweat and flesh to keeping us full of fine food and art.  

¹Richard Wrangham- Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human