My sourdough taste real weird, it kinda tastes a bit like honey....
Different yeast strains produce different compounds. If you have an artisan sourdough, its apt to have been grown to nurture a certain texture and flavor according to the baker's desires.
This indicates that bread probably came first, I just wanted to mention this after hearing you debate it on the show.
It's very difficult to figure out which form of fermented anything "came first." Fermentation is a very, very, very, very old practice that was discovered entirely by accident.
I'm betting that beer and bread were invented almost simultaneously. If there really was a precursor, it was probably beer, as I'm pretty sure gruel or gruel-like beverages would have pre-dated full bread baking. Take some wheat-based gruel, leave it to ferment in the sun, and you have crude beer.
We also have evidence of wine going back at least as far as the evidence of beer production, so the general conclusion is that ever since we've been making food, we've also been making alcohol.
EDIT: Also, the origin of much of the science of microbiology lies in the development of fermented foods. A lot of the refinement of what we know in the biological sciences is rooted in microbiology. Ergo, beer is the root of the life sciences.
My sourdough taste real weird, it kinda tastes a bit like honey....
It could be the yeast strain you used, or it could be a warm fermentation. Yeasts produce a wider variety of compounds when they ferment at warmer temperatures, and as you hit the 75 - 80F range, you start getting a lot of fruity esters. They contribute a noticeable sweetness to anything they ferment at those temperatures. This is why hefeweizens and saisons taste the way they do.
Hm, well, he doesn't back up the assertion that "beer came from bread." I mean, I understand how that's possible, but I can see it working in either direction. Bread starters were made and allowed to ferment spontaneously, but it's equally likely that someone could have made a very thin starter, or even a gruel-like beverage (which would stretch a poor grain harvest farther), and allowed it to ferment.
I would have thought leaven bread would have come around far before beer and basic wines/spirits would have been the first alcohols.
Distillation is very complicated. Eisbock and similar technologies came along long before true distilled spirits could be made.
I'm not sure about wine, though, since the earliest wines - like beers - were spontaneously fermented using wild yeasts that grew on the grapes. I believe the earliest records we have of either wine or beer talk about both around the same time.
Beer and wine are essentially the same thing; the only real difference is the source of fermentable sugar.
I didn't mean distillation. Just chuck fruit in a pot, leave it, filter, drink.
"Spirits" refers to distilled liquors. What you're describing would in fact be early wines, but it's really almost impossible for anyone to know if that came before beer or not; when you think about it, they're the same thing. Grain-growing places threw grain and water in a pot and let it ferment; fruit growing places threw fruit and water in a pot and let it ferment.
Doughnut - 1. (Cookery) a small cake of sweetened dough, often ring-shaped or spherical with a jam or cream filling, cooked in hot fat. 2. Something whose form is reminiscent of a ring-shaped cake. 3. A fast, tight 360° turn made in a motor vehicle or motorized boat.
Also, I'm with Rym on this one - Most American doughnuts are utter shite. If you want a "Real"(in the colloquial sense, rather than getting semantic about definitions) doughnut, you go to either a good doughnut shop or baker. You want a terrible american donut, you go anywhere else. Also, for full disclosure, I'm spoiled on this issue - Most shops I know that sell doughnuts either have bakery fresh doughnuts, or cook them fresh right in front of you in the case of my personal favourite, Donut King. The stores that sell American style donuts are either supermarkets selling them cheap by the dozen, or American imported stores that only do moderately well - or at least, they were two years ago when I left, but I've not heard a single thing about them since. Edit - Weirdly, this post brought up a really strong memory of a Girl I used to date a long time ago, Addy, El Salvadorian lass that worked at a Donut King, and she'd always smell like Vanilla and Malted milkshakes when she got off work. Delicious.
...she'd always smell like Vanilla and Malted milkshakes when she got off work. Delicious.
My old GM use to work in an Italian restaurant, and I can still remember his old wool trench coat smelling like mozzarella sticks every night that we gamed.
I stand firmly behind Rym's view of Krispy Kreme; shite. I grew up in a city that had a large Korean family who owned a family run doughnut-chain that flat-out put Krispy Kreme out of business when they moved in. I think most in the city were too used to real hand-made stuff (having 6 locations to KK's 1 helped too) and thus KK were not able to really hook anyone with their sugar-bread concoctions.
In regards to bread, I buy packaged wheat varieties and i've found that keeping them in the package but storing in them in the fridge makes it last 10x longer (with no ill effects).
I stand firmly behind Rym's view of Krispy Kreme; shite. I grew up in a city that had a large Korean family who owned a family run doughnut-chain that flat-out put Krispy Kreme out of business when they moved in. I think most in the city were too used to real hand-made stuff (having 6 locations to KK's 1 helped too) and thus KK were not able to really hook anyone with their sugar-bread concoctions.
In regards to bread, I buy packaged wheat varieties and i've found that keeping them in the package but storing in them in the fridge makes it last 10x longer (with no ill effects).
Same thing in my city - before I left, Krispy Kreme opened up a franchise to much fanfare. They gave away or sold very cheap a whole hell of a lot of donuts when they just opened as a promotional thing, but when they went back to normal prices, I'd only ever see them with one or two customers, even at the lunchtime rush. I suspect they may have shut down, but I don't know - they were open when I left, but it's been two years.
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I'm betting that beer and bread were invented almost simultaneously. If there really was a precursor, it was probably beer, as I'm pretty sure gruel or gruel-like beverages would have pre-dated full bread baking. Take some wheat-based gruel, leave it to ferment in the sun, and you have crude beer.
We also have evidence of wine going back at least as far as the evidence of beer production, so the general conclusion is that ever since we've been making food, we've also been making alcohol.
EDIT: Also, the origin of much of the science of microbiology lies in the development of fermented foods. A lot of the refinement of what we know in the biological sciences is rooted in microbiology. Ergo, beer is the root of the life sciences. It could be the yeast strain you used, or it could be a warm fermentation. Yeasts produce a wider variety of compounds when they ferment at warmer temperatures, and as you hit the 75 - 80F range, you start getting a lot of fruity esters. They contribute a noticeable sweetness to anything they ferment at those temperatures. This is why hefeweizens and saisons taste the way they do.
Spoiler Alert!!!:It was bread.
I'm not sure about wine, though, since the earliest wines - like beers - were spontaneously fermented using wild yeasts that grew on the grapes. I believe the earliest records we have of either wine or beer talk about both around the same time.
Beer and wine are essentially the same thing; the only real difference is the source of fermentable sugar.
1. (Cookery) a small cake of sweetened dough, often ring-shaped or spherical with a jam or cream filling, cooked in hot fat.
2. Something whose form is reminiscent of a ring-shaped cake.
3. A fast, tight 360° turn made in a motor vehicle or motorized boat.
Also, I'm with Rym on this one - Most American doughnuts are utter shite. If you want a "Real"(in the colloquial sense, rather than getting semantic about definitions) doughnut, you go to either a good doughnut shop or baker. You want a terrible american donut, you go anywhere else.
Also, for full disclosure, I'm spoiled on this issue - Most shops I know that sell doughnuts either have bakery fresh doughnuts, or cook them fresh right in front of you in the case of my personal favourite, Donut King. The stores that sell American style donuts are either supermarkets selling them cheap by the dozen, or American imported stores that only do moderately well - or at least, they were two years ago when I left, but I've not heard a single thing about them since.
Edit - Weirdly, this post brought up a really strong memory of a Girl I used to date a long time ago, Addy, El Salvadorian lass that worked at a Donut King, and she'd always smell like Vanilla and Malted milkshakes when she got off work. Delicious.
In regards to bread, I buy packaged wheat varieties and i've found that keeping them in the package but storing in them in the fridge makes it last 10x longer (with no ill effects).
I wonder if any of the real (non-chain) doughnut places will offer anything, something of value today. We'll see...