Comments on: Bread first or beer first? A bad question

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:52:37 +0000

Thanks for the long comment. I have a long reply that I’ll post as soon as I can.

By: Onkel Bob

Onkel Bob — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:57:57 +0000

Well… First off your premise about the availability of fruits is somewhat tenuous. Fruits (especially dates) require significant effort to cultivate and maintain. Orchards and groves were mostly under the purview of ruling / elite class. I doubt that the availability of honey or fruit was substantial enough for any peasant to start a home brewing project. Although I am sure meager amounts of such beverages were consumed, it is doubtful anything on any wide scale was possible.
The next question would be how did agriculture start at all. I agree with Sauer that it could not have been some group looking for a new food source, no one on the brink of starvation can afford the experimentation (and constant failure) that such an endeavor would entail. We aren’t even sure animal husbandry wasn’t the first of the agricultural sciences. It matters not because the crux is storage technology. Surplus had to be stored, or raising a surplus was useless. Grains spontaneously sprout under less than ideal conditions – and would create primitive malts. While I agree that the first uses of grains were groats and gruels, I assume the next step was beer – or at least some similar fermented beverage. I say that because that would use those spoilt grains in the bottom of the jar. Roasting them would yield ash, and pounding them mush. While I agree that querns and such appear early, I also tend to believe brewing was probably also known. While it was important to grind acorns and treat them with alkali, that wasn’t a demand for grasses, which could easily be prepared without substantial effort. (Just add fire.) So what prompted widespread fields? Was the appeal of groats and gruels so enticing that pastoralists abandoned their yearly journey to stay at home and consume grass seeds? Or was life on the trail so hard? The choice between bread or beer seems to be perfectly valid to me, as I doubt those preparations required the sedentary lifestyle that so characterized that dramatic transition. I find it difficult to believe that ancient Sumerians were able to marshal the populace into building elaborate irrigation with promises of a bowl of gruel.
Delwen Samuel’s discussions on Egyptian beer trade, and the paper Drinking beer in a Blissful Mood by Jennings et al covers the topic fairly well. As a brewer you overstate the complexity of the process, it’s rather easy if the goal is something that is palatable and consumed over the next two days. Finally, the punishment for a barmaid shortchanging the consumer in Hammurabi’s code is telling.

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:17:51 +0000

In the original question I asked about beer v bread in the context of why bother with bread at all. And did in fact mention gruel.

In context of the original blog entry, where you talk about the effort and infered a well organised group of people was required to produce flour, I think the question a fair one. In addtion there were links to people that process grain for food in a anner that doesn’t result in flour and bread, but beer and gruel. Many extant cultures don’t bother with bread. I consider cornmeal tortilla to be “bread”, the vast majority of the Old World that eat maize do not do so in the for of bread.

So why bread? Hard tack is and advantage and in England/Scotland oats were eaten as a gruel (porridge), soft oatcake pancakes and the latter was also dried for later use. A similar process is used in much of Northern Europe of a wide range of grains. If grinding was such a burden to the individual and the culture then why bother? More calories generated?

One issue I can see is the technology. The saddle quern looks like a lot of effort, but that isn’t the only technology. Hand rotary querns look like a more efficient technology for producing flour (not idea if this is the case in practice). When grinding corn, why Metate not Rotary Quern?

So why

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:13:56 +0000

But I think that “bad” questions can also lead to good discussions. You have to start somewhere!

By: maria v

maria v — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:06:11 +0000

fascinating discussion – i am enjoying your approach to asking good questions to lead to interesting answers

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:43:49 +0000

Great points, Rachel. But I’m curious — haven’t done any deep checking so maybe I’m asking a dumb question — what references are there later than 1953 and 1986 for the beer and bread issue? Knowing what I do know about honey and mead, etc., it’s not hard to visualize grains being softened to chew in water, maybe after being toasted, and forgotten. It’s not really beer per se, but … throwing out the liquid would be unacceptable (knowing how far women have to walk these days to get water in developing countries, etc., makes me think that throwing out the water would be a reaction of so-called modern people with running water or at least with a dependable well at hand). So the water might have given people ideas that led to beverages before bread. The question does imply a certain technological advancement.

But what would have prompted people to start grinding the grains in the first place? I have not looked into this at all, so I also wonder how come — once the Spanish arrived with oxen and horses and mules, animals unknown to the Mesoamericans — the grinding of corn by hand continued instead of using those large animals hitched up to grinding stones/mills? You say that grinding was the job of slaves and convicts. Certainly also of women. Lower status people? People hooked up to grinding stones?