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In a lively gastronomical tour around the world and through the millennia, Uncorking the Past tells the compelling story of humanity's ingenious, intoxicating search for booze. Following a tantalizing trail of archaeological, chemical, artistic, and textual clues, Patrick E. McGovern, the leading authority on ancient alcoholic beverages, brings us up to date on what we now know about the creation and history of alcohol, and the role of alcohol in society across cultures. Along the way, he integrates studies in food and sociology to explore a provocative hypothesis about the integral role that spirits have played in human evolution. We discover, for example, that the cereal staples of the modern world were probably domesticated in agrarian societies for their potential in fermenting large quantities of alcoholic beverages. These include the delectable rice wines of China and Japan, the corn beers of the Americas, and the millet and sorghum drinks of Africa. Humans also learned how to make mead from honey and wine from exotic fruits of all kinds: even from the sweet pulp of the cacao (chocolate) fruit in the New World. The perfect drink, it turns out-whether it be mind-altering, medicinal, a religious symbol, liquid courage, or artistic inspiration-has not only been a profound force in history, but may be fundamental to the human condition itself. This coffee table book will sate the curiosity of any armchair historian interested in the long history of food and wine.
Stone age wine -- The Noah hypothesis -- The archaeological and chemical hunt for the earliest wine -- Neolithic wine! -- Wine of the earliest pharaohs -- Wine of Egypt's golden age -- Wine of the world's first cities -- Wine and the great empires of the ancient Near East -- The Holy Land's bounty -- Lands of Dionysos : Greece and western Anatolia -- A beverage for King Midas and at the limits of the civilized world -- Molecular archaeology, wine, and a view to the future.
From the Publisher: Through its complex history, alcohol has served many cultural functions, often constructive ones. For centuries it has been used as a valuable economic commodity, a medicinal tool, a focus of social gatherings, and a mechanism for psychological escape.
One of Smithsonian Magazine’s Ten Best Books of the Year about Food A Forbes Best Booze Book of the Year Interweaving archaeology and science, Patrick E. McGovern tells the enthralling story of the world’s oldest alcoholic beverages and the cultures that created them. Humans invented heady concoctions, experimenting with fruits, honey, cereals, tree resins, botanicals, and more. These “liquid time capsules” carried social, medicinal, and religious significance with far-reaching consequences for our species. McGovern describes nine extreme fermented beverages of our ancestors, including the Midas Touch from Turkey and the 9000-year-old Chateau Jiahu from Neolithic China, the earliest chemically identified alcoholic drink yet discovered. For the adventuresome, homebrew interpretations of the ancient drinks are provided, with matching meal recipes.
"Meticulously researched history…look[s] at how wine and Western civilization grew up together." —Dave McIntyre, Washington Post Because science and technology have opened new avenues for vintners, our taste in wine has grown ever more diverse. Wine is now the subject of careful chemistry and global demand. Paul Lukacs recounts the journey of wine through history—how wine acquired its social cachet, how vintners discovered the twin importance of place and grape, and how a basic need evolved into a realm of choice.
The beer of today—brewed from malted grain and hops, manufactured by large and often multinational corporations, frequently associated with young adults, sports, and drunkenness—is largely the result of scientific and industrial developments of the nineteenth century. Modern beer, however, has little in common with the drink that carried that name through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Looking at a time when beer was often a nutritional necessity, was sometimes used as medicine, could be flavored with everything from the bark of fir trees to thyme and fresh eggs, and was consumed by men, women, and children alike, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance presents an extraordinarily detailed history of the business, art, and governance of brewing. During the medieval and early modern periods beer was as much a daily necessity as a source of inebriation and amusement. It was the beverage of choice of urban populations that lacked access to secure sources of potable water; a commodity of economic as well as social importance; a safe drink for daily consumption that was less expensive than wine; and a major source of tax revenue for the state. In Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Richard W. Unger has written an encompassing study of beer as both a product and an economic force in Europe. Drawing from archives in the Low Countries and England to assemble an impressively complete history, Unger describes the transformation of the industry from small-scale production that was a basic part of housewifery to a highly regulated commercial enterprise dominated by the wealthy and overseen by government authorities. Looking at the intersecting technological, economic, cultural, and political changes that influenced the transformation of brewing over centuries, he traces how improvements in technology and in the distribution of information combined to standardize quality, showing how the process of urbanization created the concentrated markets essential for commercial production. Weaving together the stories of prosperous businessmen, skilled brewmasters, and small producers, this impressively researched overview of the social and cultural practices that surrounded the beer industry is rich in implication for the history of the period as a whole.
Winner of the Gourmand Wine Books prize for 'Best Drinks Writing Book' in the UK A fascinating journey through ancient wine country that reveals the drinking habits of early Christians, from Abraham to Jesus. Wine connoisseur Joel Butler teamed up with biblical historian Randall Heskett for a remarkable adventure that travels the biblical wine trail in order to understand what kinds of wines people were drinking 2,000 to 3,500 years ago. Along the way, they discover the origins of wine, unpack the myth of Shiraz, and learn the secrets of how wine infiltrated the biblical world. This fascinating narrative is full of astounding facts that any wine lover can take to their next tasting, including the myths of the Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Jewish wine gods, the emergence of kosher wine, as well as the use of wine in sacrifices and other rites. It will also take a close a look at contemporary modern wines made with ancient techniques, and guide the reader to experience the wines Noah (the first wine maker!) Abraham, Moses and Jesus drank.
The main purpose of this book is to describe the variety of drinking occasions that exist around the world, primarily in modern, industrialized countries. As such, it celebrates the diversity of normal drinking behavior and illustrates a wide range of beneficial drinking patterns. Attention is also paid to the relations between drink and culture that prevail in non-Western societies and in developing countries. The aims of the book are twofold: to deal directly with the challenge of how to define responsible drinking in the face of the world's many different drinking styles, and to portray the many ways in which people have thought about or used alcohol as an integral part of their culture
Ancient brewing traditions and techniques have been passed generation to generation on farms throughout remote areas of northern Europe. With these traditions facing near extinction, author Lars Marius Garshol set out to explore and document the lost art of brewing using traditional local methods. Equal parts history, cultural anthropology, social science, and travelogue, this book describes brewing and fermentation techniques that are vastly different from modern craft brewing and preserves them for posterity and exploration. Learn about uncovering an unusual strain of yeast, called kveik, which can ferment a batch to completion in just 36 hours. Discover how to make keptinis by baking the mash in the oven. Explore using juniper boughs for various stages of the brewing process. Test your own hand by brewing recipes gleaned from years of travel and research in the farmlands of northern Europe. Meet the brewers and delve into the ingredients that have kept these traditional methods alive. Discover the regional and stylistic differences between farmhouse brewers today and throughout history.
The spectacular science behind champagne's effervescence Uncorked quenches our curiosity about the inner workings of one of the world's most prized beverages. Esteemed for its freshness, vitality, and sensuality, champagne is a wine of great complexity. Mysteries aplenty gush forth with the popping of that cork. Just what is that fizz? Can you judge champagne quality by how big the bubbles are, how long they last, or how they behave before they fade? And why does serving champagne in a long-stemmed flute prolong its chill and effervescence? Through lively prose and a wealth of state-of-the-art photos, this revised edition of Uncorked unlocks the door to what champagne is all about. Providing an unprecedented close-up view of the beauty in the bubbles, Gérard Liger-Belair presents images that look surprisingly like lovely flowers, geometric patterns, even galaxies as the bubbles rise through the glass and burst forth on the surface. He illustrates how bubbles form not on the glass itself but are "born" out of debris stuck on the glass wall, how they rise, and how they pop. Offering a colorful history of champagne, Liger-Belair tells us how it is made and he asks if global warming could spell champagne's demise. In a brand-new afterword, he updates the reader on new developments in the world of bubble science and delves even more deeply into the processes that give champagne its unique and beautiful character. Bubbly may tickle the nose, but Uncorked tackles what the nose and the naked eye cannot—the spectacular science that gives champagne its charm and champagne drinkers immeasurable pleasure.