Cocoa brew in history

Scholars in the field of genetics investigating the origins of cocoa beans have suggested that the origins of wild cocoa trees are found to be at multiple locations, probably within the Oronico and Amazon River basins (present-day Colombia and Venezuela) prior to 1900 BC.

The earliest evidence showed that cocoa was first consumed by the people of Mokaya, one of the earliest Mesoamerican cultural groups, from 1900 to 1500 BC

The distinctive Mesoamerican style of cacao preparation involved fermenting cacao beans, drying them, optionally toasting them, grinding them, and mixing them with water in a thick bitter suspension. Invading Europeans came to appreciate this beverage, giving rise to the modern chocolate industry.

Recently researchers from University of Pennsylvania discovered high-necked jar in the shape of a cacao pod, corresponding to a type produced and probably used for serving an alcoholic beverage made from cacao pulp. Chemical analysis demonstrates that cacao beverages were consumed at Puerto Escondido (Honduras) at least as early as 1100 B.C., some 500 years earlier than previously documented. This jar was likely filled with a fermented chocolate beverage made from ripe chocolate fruit.

The evidence indicates that, long before the flavor of the cacao seed (or bean) became popular, it was the sweet pulp of the chocolate fruit, used in making a fermented (5% alcohol) beverage, which first drew attention to the plant in the Americas.

Like grape wine, rice wine, and barley beer in the Old World, chocolate “wine” went on to become the prerogative of royalty and the elite generally, and a focus of religion in the New World.
Cocoa brew in history

History of Fermentation

Mankind is practicizing fermentation since pre-historic times. This useful conventional technology has risen by accident.

During pre-historic times, women made learned the art of kaffir beer from their husband before they get marry.

The term fermentation is derived from the Latin verb ‘fervere’, to boil, which describes the appearance of the action of yeast on extracts of fruits or malted grain during the production of alcoholic beverages.

Sorghum grains or millet are germinated, sundried ground and mixed with sorghum, millet or maize flours and water, and then cooked, cooled and fermented by the residual yeast and the dregs in the containers.

The use of fermentation starts might very well have its origins in the process of Euchok, the daughter of the legendary king of Woo of 4000 BC, known as the Goddess of rice wine in Chinese culture.

Understanding of scientific procedure of fermentation microbiology began in 1850s, after Louis Pasteur, who has succeed in producing two forms of amyls alcohol by fermentation.

Between 1900 and 1930, ethyl alcohol and butyl alcohol are the most important industrial fermentations in the word. But by the 1960s, chemical synthesis of alcohol and other solvents were less expensive and interest in fermentations diminished.

It is often mentioned that today’s modern biotechnology originated from the alcohol fermentation of primitive peoples.

Nowadays, the development of genetic engineering has made it possible to use the process of fermentation for the production of many compounds including vaccines, antibiotics and enzymes and also for biological conversion of many substances.
History of Fermentation

Grape Juice and Wine

Grape Juice and Wine
Ancient Egyptian inscription indicate that the grape was grown there in 2375 B.C. Murals to Egyptian tombs carry depictions of grape vines, grape harvesting, and trampling to obtain the juice.

By way of classical Greece and later Rome, the grape vine expanded into all the lands of Europe and North Africa where it will grow.

The Greeks cultivated the grape vine wherever they went; Italy, north Africa, southern France and southern Spain, including the best known wine regions of the world, Bordeaux and Burgundy. The Greeks called Italy the Land of Vines.

Romans grew different varieties and appreciated their diversity. Grapes were grown on trees and trellises, preferentially on terraced hills and banks surrounding river valleys. Romans aged wine in barrels, which they invented. Before then it had been kept in earthenware amphorae.

Grape juice changes naturally into wine when sugar fermenting yeast is present. When grapes are crushed with the skins, yeast comes in contact with the juice. It grows in the juice, using the sugar as its source of energy, and in process transforms the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Alcohol in high concentrations is toxic, and when it reaches a certain level (between 12 and 14 percent), most strains of yeasts cannot grow any more. The wine is now ready. It is young wine and tastes very much likes grape juice alcohol. When the first fermentation is completed (sometimes even before), and especially if the wine is in a warm palace and exposed to the air, special bacteria start growing on the alcohol and transforming it into acetic acid. The wine spoils and turns to vinegar.

Since remotest antiquity, the principal problem was not to make wine but to keep it from spoiling. In classical Greece wines were drunk young and most were probably vinegary. To counter the acid taste a variety of methods were employed. Greeks learned that air speeds up the spoiling process. Amphorae had narrow necks to reduce the contact of wine with air, and they were kept tightly stoppered.

Because air could penetrate earthenware surfaces, the Greeks line their amphorae with resin. This preserved wine for use in commerce. The Romans took a step forward when they invented wooden barrels. They could be stoppered better than amphorae, and the oak imparted flavor from the wine. Some Roman wines apparently kept very well. There are reports of vintages that lasted to a hundred years.
Grape Juice and Wine

History of Yoghurt

History of Yoghurt
Fermentation of yoghurt is one of the oldest methods practiced by human beings in order to transform milk into products. There is evidence of cultured milk products being produced as food for at least 4,500 years. The exact origin of making fermented milk could be date from some 10000 – 15000 years ago. It might dates back to pre-Biblical times, and Moses reputedly partook of it on his way to promised Land. The earliest yoghurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria living on the goat skin bags carried by the Bulgars (or Hunno-Bulgars), a nomadic people who began migrating into Europe in the second century AD and eventually settled in the Balkans at the end of the seventh century.

Archaeological evidence shows that some civilians were well advanced in agriculture and husbandry methods, and in the production of fermented milks such as yoghurt (for example the Sumerians and Babylonians, the Pharos and Indians).

The belief in its beneficial influence on human health and nutrition has existed in many civilizations. The use of yoghurt by mediaeval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the eleventh century. In both texts the word "yoghurt" is mentioned in different sections and its use by nomadic Turks is described. The first account of a European encounter with yoghurt occurs in French clinical history: King Francois I suffering from an intestinal complaint which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a Jewish doctor from Constantinople, who allegedly cured the patient with yoghurt. The doctor arrived on foot with flock of sheep and cured his royal client, but refused to divulge the secret of his concoctions. It is likely, however, that the origin of yoghurt was from Middle East after domestication of milk producing animals began, around 9000 B.C.

The Russian biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov co-winner of 1908 Nobel Prize had an unproven hypothesis that regular consumption of yoghurt was responsible for the unusually long lifespans of Bulgarian peasants. Believing Lactobacillus to be essential for good health, Mechnikov worked to popularise yoghurt as a foodstuff throughout Europe. It fell to a Sephardic Jewish entrepreneur named Isaac Carasso to industrialize the production of yoghurt.
History of Yoghurt