This is an offshoot of an experiment I am
currently conducting, in which I attempt to travel back into the dim, unrecorded
past of many centuries ago. I try to understand the past sometime by attempting
to replicate what I think the materials demand of me.
I had gotten the notion that I could sprout wheat and then grind the resulting pulpy sprouts to make a bread dough with very few further additions. I wish I had thought of it in time to start some sourdough base, but I didn’t. So, I will use some commercial yeast.
How it goes is this; I was soaking three cups of hard red winter wheat in a half gallon jar of water in preparation for sprouting and I noticed that the soaking water looked rather brown. Hm. Possibly full of nutrients of some kind. I didn’t taste it, I should have, I just didn’t think of it.
Then I got to thinking of the jocular old argument about which came first, bread or beer. Then I got to looking at that soaking liquid again and I wondered what would happen if a person decided to save that soaking water in a clay pot, say, and it sat around until it got a little spritzig? Would that not be darn near beer. I guess it depends on the carbohydrate level of the liquid.
Considering that scenario, I then thought maybe some early person might have gone ahead and ground up the soaked wheat and used it in devising a sort of primitive bread. Probably some sort of flat bread.
There are other possibilities. I think I read that the Egyptians made beer by soaking bread, not the wheat berries, and then fermenting that liquid. That would probably increase the carbohydrate level of the liquid over plain wheat cooking or soaking water.
Some wild beer drinking individuals have tried to convince me that beer making came first. I don’t see how it could.
To be fair, I am trying to imagine how beer making could emerge before bread. Let’s see. Early man notices that grass seeds are edible, probably because he saw animals eating them, or he was just so hungry that he would try to eat anything that he could catch. I can’t figure any reason he, she, or they, would soak the grains in water. OTOH maybe if one cooked a batch of this grain, because it’s easier to eat cooked, and the vessel of watery gruel sat around for a while and fermented and some brave soul drank it and noticed that he felt happy, sexy, smart, and brave afterward. He might do it again on purpose.
My conclusion? I think that anything that is physically possible to do with food has probably been tried, with more or less success. I tend to believe it was bread first usually, but possibly in cases where people boiled the grain to make it soft, that may have led to beer first!
How’s that for a fine squishy equivocation?
I had gotten the notion that I could sprout wheat and then grind the resulting pulpy sprouts to make a bread dough with very few further additions. I wish I had thought of it in time to start some sourdough base, but I didn’t. So, I will use some commercial yeast.
How it goes is this; I was soaking three cups of hard red winter wheat in a half gallon jar of water in preparation for sprouting and I noticed that the soaking water looked rather brown. Hm. Possibly full of nutrients of some kind. I didn’t taste it, I should have, I just didn’t think of it.
Then I got to thinking of the jocular old argument about which came first, bread or beer. Then I got to looking at that soaking liquid again and I wondered what would happen if a person decided to save that soaking water in a clay pot, say, and it sat around until it got a little spritzig? Would that not be darn near beer. I guess it depends on the carbohydrate level of the liquid.
Considering that scenario, I then thought maybe some early person might have gone ahead and ground up the soaked wheat and used it in devising a sort of primitive bread. Probably some sort of flat bread.
There are other possibilities. I think I read that the Egyptians made beer by soaking bread, not the wheat berries, and then fermenting that liquid. That would probably increase the carbohydrate level of the liquid over plain wheat cooking or soaking water.
Some wild beer drinking individuals have tried to convince me that beer making came first. I don’t see how it could.
To be fair, I am trying to imagine how beer making could emerge before bread. Let’s see. Early man notices that grass seeds are edible, probably because he saw animals eating them, or he was just so hungry that he would try to eat anything that he could catch. I can’t figure any reason he, she, or they, would soak the grains in water. OTOH maybe if one cooked a batch of this grain, because it’s easier to eat cooked, and the vessel of watery gruel sat around for a while and fermented and some brave soul drank it and noticed that he felt happy, sexy, smart, and brave afterward. He might do it again on purpose.
My conclusion? I think that anything that is physically possible to do with food has probably been tried, with more or less success. I tend to believe it was bread first usually, but possibly in cases where people boiled the grain to make it soft, that may have led to beer first!
How’s that for a fine squishy equivocation?
Please discuss, if you feel one way or the other about the matter!
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