The lack of universal beeriness - outside of Europe, the Middle East and Africa - has sometimes got me wondering about whether it has more to do with the lack of universal anthropolgical awareness of New World beer than its historic presence. Interesting, then, to note this reference to the habits of South Americans a way back:
As for the beer, David John Goldstein, an anthropologist at Northeastern Illinois University, in Chicago, said the New World's oldest dedicated brewery is at a 2,600-year-old site in southern Peru. There, people from the Wari empire made a drink called chicha from the sugary seeds of a local tree and drank it for ceremonial purposes. Goldstein, who has brewed his own, says it has "a sort of dirty-sock taste, deep, very sour, acrid." But the alcohol works, and he is sure some version of it was made much earlier and in many other places.Dirty-sock taste. Has he had a glass of macro-crap lately? More likely that there is a gap in understanding in that usually people find a way to make things tasty.
Comments
Jack - February 18, 2007 6:46 PM
I wonder if Goldstein used the same ingredient to start the fermentation process that I'm told the women who brewed chicha did? They used their own saliva for its natural yeast and that got things going. Yum.
Alan - February 18, 2007 9:50 PM
I think I recall that point being made by Hornsey in his book - though, when you think about it, swapping spit with strangers and beer are not exactly strange bedfellows.
Jack - February 18, 2007 10:40 PM
Good point.
Jonathan - February 19, 2007 12:04 AM
I actually think the yeast was gleaned off of a dirty sock. I read in a book that they used to call yeast addition "pitching the ol' stocking." Granted, that's a rough translation.
David - July 19, 2009 12:49 PM
Chicha - traditional beer in the andean zone - is normally made of a special variety of maiz (corn), and its use extended and extends all over the andean territory, including with this the nearby coastal desserts and valleys; it's very tasty. The molle beer from Moquegua - which is to what Goldstein refers - must be a located variety made of a native tree with many other grants. The chewing (saliva) of herbs is used in the amazonian jungle tradition to make masato, another very ancient sort of beer... but that's something else.