Recipes for Disaster?
How can we know what was in these ancient drinks? One way is to study archaeological sites looking for brewery-like structures and equipment. Often times murals, ancient writings or drinking vessels have been found. As added credibility, sometimes the modern culture that descended from the ancients still brews the same type of beverage.
Collecting wild yeast in an Egyptian date plantation
The sciences behind archaeology have gotten increasingly sophisticated, too. Biomolecular archaeologists are using DNA sequencing and high-tech chemical analysis of pottery remains. Ethnobotanists deduce what people ate and drank from ancient plant residues. Theologians and historians translate sacred texts.
Ted Borek, a chemist with Sandia National Laboratories, is analyzing pottery from the Pueblo Indians and comparing results to known fermentation pots from the Tarahumara Indians in Northern Mexico. “We have not found that ‘smoking gun’ that definitely provides evidence of intentional fermentation,” he says objectively. “It’s always possible that corn fermented in a pot without the intent of the owner and that it wasn’t meant to be drunk.”
