The Armour Archive

Hi,

A medical doctor and I were discussing historical methods for purifying water – boiling or treatment.

Boiling works mostly for the Asian cultures, and there was tea to flavor the water. Tea has caffeine, a stimulant.

European cultures used alcohol to treat water, a depressant.

He mentioned that scientific study and literature really took off once tea and coffee started becoming staples in European and American culture (~ 1500-1800, sort of). He mentioned tea parties of the Americas and the coffee houses of Europe. At the same time, the pubs, alehouses and taverns started to die away from what I've read.

Could you debate the historical significance of caffeine and alcohol on historical trends and intellectual knowledge?

Thanks!

-Aaron

THe Greek Philosophers and inventors drank watered wine, as did the Romans. As they are the foundation of Western Civilization, and they created everything from the basis of Western Philosophy, the idea of Democracy, to such mundane things as the steam turbine, the aquaduct, concrete, the arch, hydraulic cement, the crane, and too many inventions to enumerate and philosophies which were the basis of every advance in civilization that came after them, I think that the idea if the docor you chatted with is an interesting speculation, but not supportable when examined in detail.

For instance, the Founding Fathers of this country were demonstrably awash in a sea of alchohol - I wager it is easily documented George Washington and his staff consumed much more alcohol, ranging from puncheons to Madeira - nothing mild like beer, than tea of coffee.

Interesting notion but...

Egypt - birth of Geometry, development of irrigation - Beer and Wine
Greece - math, philosophy - Wine
Rome - engineering - Wine

On the other hand, the Chinese legend of the origin of tea ties its use directly to use by monastic aesthetics to aid in meditation.
Very important spiritualy but no value technologicaly.
...and if you count spiritual accomplishments then you must add the ethical spirituality of the Israelite prophets most of whom drank wine and some of whom probably used other herbal mind altering substances.

(and on the other other hand, China, Japan.. had quite a bit of wine and other spirits as well)

IMO neither the West's purported fall into barbarism (did it realy ever fall? or did Europe simply have another development pattern?) nor its rise out of it can be tied to the particular drinking patterns.

Considering the fact that our ancestors developed a tolerance to the toxic properties of alchool, a thing that lack in many from the far east of the world, I can see that they were not drunk to dumbness the whole day, but had time to built cathedrals and the fundations of our own world.

Gin.

Gin was pretty much the cocaine of England in the 18th Century, so much so that a tax put upon it caused riots in 1736.

I think the idea of coffee, tea, the potato, corn (maize), and chcolate as being a cause of intellectual ferment must be combined with various other historical event.

Coffee and tea did not cause the scientific revoltution. It may have enabled it. A more important contribution was Guttenbergs printing press and publication and distrubtion of information, knowledge and ideas. Still, these elements may not have been combined with the availability of a standard diet of safe foods containing protein and carbohetrates. Do not think cheese, sausage, & pre-served cabbage--thoroughly middle class foods--didn't contribute.

After all, without preserved foods the voyages to other parts of the planet might not have been possible.

Mord.

Before Europeans imported tea from China they drank sage 'tea'. Apparently the Chinese liked the sage tea well enough that you could get far more black tea in trade then the amount of sage.

Mord wrote:Gin.
Gin was pretty much the cocaine of England in the 18th Century

HOw the English could drink that crud...

Actualy, the most direct culinary link to "advancement" was the birth of the British Empire. They needed worldwide conquest to get something decent to eat.
(I think this needs attribution to Douglas Adams)

...pre-served cabbage

Please define / explain

I have a pet theory that the Romans tried to conquer the world because they were looking for coffee. They needed it but didn't know what it was, and that made them angry while they searched for it.

Not really a *supportable* theory, but it explains much!

Matthew

Norman wrote:

Mord wrote:Gin.
Gin was pretty much the cocaine of England in the 18th Century

HOw the English could drink that crud...

Actualy, the most direct culinary link to "advancement" was the birth of the British Empire. They needed worldwide conquest to get something decent to eat.
(I think this needs attribution to Douglas Adams)

...pre-served cabbage

Please define / explain

Sorry, I was doing this off the top of my head.

preserved cabbage--like sauer kraut.

The idea of nutrition being a historically important has been rolling about in my mind for some time. I agree, somewhat, about your idea that the British needed to leave to find something decent to eat. But also look, oddly enough at clover as a re-newable plant for the feeding of livestock (apparently this was the contribution of one Jethro Tull)--an important source of protein.

Also, in the middle ages, the introduciton of legumes (peas, lentils, and certain beans) was important since these plants introduced nitrogen back into the soil, and were, at least on the part of lentils a source of protein. Kind of important igf you're vegitarian monk. Also, legumes can be stored with little rot, whereas meat had to be preserved, along with other foods--like cabbage.

Btw, I hate lentils.

Mord.

Witold Rybczinski has hypothesized that coffee was very important to the industrial revolution, but for the laborers, not for the engineers. One's natural inclination is to rise with the sun; since sunrise times vary seasonally, this means getting up at different times of the clock (o'clock) for different times of the year, which doesn't lend itself to a factory schedule. Coffee is what makes it possible to be at your machine at 0800 every day.

Mord wrote:The idea of nutrition being a historically important has been rolling about in my mind for some time.

If you haven't already, you should read Kurlansky's Cod.

And Central America with chocolate containing Theobromine factors in how?

I'd not tie it to scientific progress but to intellectual ferment instead and go for the Enlightenment as a possible result myself if I had to do a paper on it...

Thomas

" I agree, somewhat, about your idea that the British needed to leave to find something decent to eat."

Do you mean in modern terms of decent or flavour variety or of its time in relation to other places etc?

I would be interested as there is a lot of guff talked about British (English would be more apt IMHO) food, seeing as the late medieval, Tudor, 17thc and 18thc saw some simply amazing foods being created from a wide range of ingredients from around the world. If anything British food is more lacklustre than ever before as it has been almost completely been subsumed by foreign food in its entirety which got us back on our feet after the 1940s and 50s austerity years.

Beef a la mode, lobster in cream fried inna bun, what could be more sublime?

I would say though that chocolate is the best thing ever, Newton's chocolate froth, ie ground cocoa beans then mixed with fresh cream which is then poured into a bowl from a height to aerate it is simply superb.

Interestingly, tea is probably the only foodstuff that really defines Britain, but again it is from foreign parts and not drunk as they do there.

Aaron wrote:Hi,

A medical doctor and I were discussing historical methods for purifying water – boiling or treatment.

Boiling works mostly for the Asian cultures, and there was tea to flavor the water. Tea has caffeine, a stimulant.

European cultures used alcohol to treat water, a depressant.

How do you think they got alcohol in the first place? Distillation of alcohol was not widespread until the industrial age. Brewing grain or honey based beverages requires substantial hot water. Fermentation of most fruits other than grapes requires additional sugar and/or honey to create a beverage that will keep. I don't recall the exact figure but IIRC 7% ABV+ will retard the microorganisms that make beer or wine go off. Watering wine will not purify the water. For pre-industrial societies, the only effective way to sanitize water is heat.

I think the premise of your discussion was flawed. Europeans did consume substantial quantities of brewed or fermented beverages according to what I've read. Several herbal teas are described for medicinal purposes. Presumably, other herb and flower teas were enjoyed for their flavour. The assumption that this was purely to be "stimulated" is questionable. That these were the only fluids consumed is economically impossible.

A substantially agrarian society has to consume the cereals and fruit it produces. In the case of cereals, three methods of preparation are normal and documented:
i) ground meal for porridge;
ii) ground flour for bread;
iii) crushed meal steeped and the drawn liquor fermented to some extent.

Now, how much porridge can the average person consume every day? Bread is more palatable and portable, even if more expensive. Ale, when consumed quickly after primary fermentation, is a fantastic source of nutrients. High proportions of residual sugars, vitamins and sanitized water. After extensive fermentation, these sugars are converted to alcohol and CO2, neither of which is nutritious. Yeast and suspended protein remnants drop out of solution. Effectively aging produces stale ale which is similar to modern beer. A source of alcohol and just enough potable water to flush it out of the system. Not helpful or healthy in large quantities.

No, Aaron, I think you are off the mark with this.

earnest carruthers wrote:" I agree, somewhat, about your idea that the British needed to leave to find something decent to eat."
Do you mean in modern terms of decent or flavour variety or of its time in relation to other places etc?

One day the Queen said "I could go for a spot of curry."
And off went the armies.

Interestingly, tea is probably the only foodstuff that really defines Britain, but again it is from foreign parts and not drunk as they do there.

I always thought that the Brits are silly to drink it in little cups with milk (the right way is in a glass with lemon )
But all the Indians I've met drink it like the Brits -- so I assume the Brits were copying Indian tradition.

"One day the Queen said "I could go for a spot of curry."
And off went the armies. "

A relatively recent survey asked for the most popular dish eaten in the UK, the answer (apparently) was chicken tikka marsala. Whenever people ask me about modern UK food I say that my favourite English food is in fact curry, this gets the right ironic response.

" always thought that the Brits are silly to drink it in little cups with milk (the right way is in a glass with lemon )
But all the Indians I've met drink it like the Brits -- so I assume the Brits were copying Indian tradition."

Weird thing about tea, the Chinese, the Japanese, the French even drink it with water and maybe sugar, however we drink it with milk. Legend has it that we added milk to tea to prevent the china ware breaking because for some reason when tea was introduced into Britain we poured it boilng rather than letting it cool as the orientals do. Possibly the Anglo-Indian Raj days were a weird case where the west influenced the East in an odd way.

I drink it both ways.

"How do you think they got alcohol in the first place? Distillation of alcohol was not widespread until the industrial age. "

It was used medicinally and alchemically, alembic distillation etc etc. Not widespread in the sense we have but used as Aqua Vitae it was in the middle ages.

"For pre-industrial societies, the only effective way to sanitize water is heat. "

I would ask the question how did they know that boiling killed off organisms they did not know existed in the first place? the idea of water sanitation is based mainly around palpable pollution, ie taste, smell and sight and location near known pollutants. Most spring water is perfectly fine to drink etc.

Are we not ascribing modern knowledge to the past?

earnest carruthers wrote:Whenever people ask me about modern UK food I say that my favourite English food is in fact curry, this gets the right ironic response.

Many modern curries, particularly "vindaloo," are English, the recipes having been developed in England by Indian immigrants and their descendants.

We have the same thing in the US with several popular "ethnic" dishes, particularly Chinese

"Many modern curries, particularly "vindaloo," are English, the recipes having been developed in England by Indian immigrants and their descendants. "

Yes and furthermore the 'Indian restaurants' are mostly run by Bengalis very rarely Indians. My local takeaway does the usual 'Indian' dishes but I end up ordering the very few Bengali-type dishes they have and it makes a pleasant change.

I have a friend from Bombay (she is very firmly from there not Mumbai) and her cuisine is simply awesome, nothing like the 'Indian' food in restaurants. Oddly though it has become a kind of national food in its own right, this weird made-up pseudo Indian nosh.

The debate may have been flawed from the start, but the discussion is fun so far. Please continue.

-Aaron

earnest carruthers wrote:"For pre-industrial societies, the only effective way to sanitize water is heat. "

I would ask the question how did they know that boiling killed off organisms they did not know existed in the first place? the idea of water sanitation is based mainly around palpable pollution, ie taste, smell and sight and location near known pollutants. Most spring water is perfectly fine to drink etc.

Are we not ascribing modern knowledge to the past?

In no way did I infer that pre-industrial societies were aware of why heating water sanitizes it. Merely that the only process available to them was what we would now call pasteurization. "Cooking" makes a lot of indigestible foodstuffs edible. It isn't a leap to imagine people eventually sorted out that sufficient heat and time made safer, reliable food processing.

As to sources of safe potable water, people develop tolerance to a surprising level of contamination that regularly makes visitors ill. (classic Montezuma's Revenge) Anyone will choose clear, fresh water over other sources. I think humans are hardwired to discern most nasty organic pollutants and therefore avoid them.

You don't need to know why something works in order to know it works. Brewers were dumping yeast sediment into new batches centuries before they had the slightest notion of what yeast was.

Oh, and while I don't know the exact ABV that lets a beverage keep, that's kind of a sliding question. Wine goes bad, eventually, as does liquor, unless it's stored under very controlled conditions. Beer has the shortest of shelf lives, but still can easily keep for over a year simply by being cellared. I would wager number is really closer to 3% rather than 7%.

Sorry, I was doing this off the top of my head.

preserved cabbage--like sauer kraut.

If you ask me, sauer kraut IS "pre-served cabbage".

What a great topic!

Distillation of alcohol was not widespread until the industrial age.

I was about to go crazy, but then my brain kicked in and I remembered the difference between fermentation and distillation. Duh.

For instance, the Founding Fathers of this country were demonstrably awash in a sea of alchohol...

Often enough to warrant their very own, personal distillery:

http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/pres_a ... fm/sss/82/

Shelf-life of beer depends on if it has hops in it. Ale (un-hopped beer) goes bad much faster. in fact, beer wasn't a viable export until hops were used, allowing the beer to travel

Back in american colonial times hard liquor was an *efficient* method of transporting grain crops. With few and poor roads a couple of gallons of liquor was a lot more portable than bushels and bushels of grain!

Look at the whiskey rebellion!

Thomas

and lets not forget when coffee houses and cafes became the central location for discussing government (and its potential replacements) while getting stimulated v. getting drunk and falling asleep.

robstout wrote:Shelf-life of beer depends on if it has hops in it. Ale (un-hopped beer) goes bad much faster. in fact, beer wasn't a viable export until hops were used, allowing the beer to travel

Sure, but either way it lasts longer than grain.

This may be of interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcohol

I was wrong BTW. China discovered alcohol first, by thousands of years.

-Aaron

Lucius Marius Scaevola wrote:

robstout wrote:Shelf-life of beer depends on if it has hops in it. Ale (un-hopped beer) goes bad much faster. in fact, beer wasn't a viable export until hops were used, allowing the beer to travel

Sure, but either way it lasts longer than grain.

No it doesn't. Grain can be kept stored for an entire Winter successfully, even with Medieval conditions, and Ale goes bad in three days, and Beer bad in a week or two. In the right conditions, grain can last indefinitely - Roman era grain was found recently in Egypt, which when planted, germinated.

How do you think people managed to plant crops every year, if grain went bad in less than 3 days?

Aaron wrote:He mentioned that scientific study and literature really took off once tea and coffee started becoming staples in European and American culture (~ 1500-1800, sort of). He mentioned tea parties of the Americas and the coffee houses of Europe. At the same time, the pubs, alehouses and taverns started to die away from what I've read.

Buh? Part of this is well-informed, the rest not.

Tea and coffee did not become common beverages until the late 17th century. Coffeehouses start springing up in the 1660s, and by 1700 they were all the rage. From that point, they gained the moniker "penny university". Coffeehouses were places in which the intellectual elite could and would rub elbows with draymen and porters. They were egalitarian enclaves in a very stratified and caste-conscious society. From thence some truly interesting ideas sprang. But coffeehouses were not the embryos from which the Humanist revolution developed. It's a lot more complicated than that.

That the alehouse or tavern began to die is inaccurate. It is only recently - the last 50 years or so - that the tavern began to die as the center of the village social scene. Around the same time, coincidentally, that the village as a social unit began to disappear.

In fact, if it weren't for taverns, the American Revolution would not have occurred.

That brewed beverages were viewed as stimulants or food is another question. Tea and coffee, I don't know much about societal perception. But ale? Food. No argument; the academic record is abundantly clear.

Kel Rekuta wrote:Ale, when consumed quickly after primary fermentation, is a fantastic source of nutrients. High proportions of residual sugars, vitamins and sanitized water. After extensive fermentation, these sugars are converted to alcohol and CO2, neither of which is nutritious. Yeast and suspended protein remnants drop out of solution.

While technically accurate, these statements are misleading. The process of aging does encourage beer/ale to "drop bright". But that does not mean that all yeast and proteins have fallen out of suspension (suspension, not solution!); it merely means you can see through it.

Aging does not produce more alcohol. When the primary, vigorous ferment is complete, the alcohol content is fixed. Alcohol content is dependent on the amount and type of sugars available for the yeast to metabolize, not the amount of time the wort is in contact with yeast. Moreover, the amount of residual sugars and starches resident in the beverage is also established by the end of the primary ferment.

I do concede that a turbid ale still clouded with yeast, proteins and other trub is richer in nutrients than aged, bright ale. But as the historical record shows a marked distaste for turbid ale - and is replete with directions on how to correct the issue in the house or recommendations to severely punish errant brewers and retailers - it's irresponsible to place too much emphasis on it.

Lucius Marius Scaevola wrote:Oh, and while I don't know the exact ABV that lets a beverage keep, that's kind of a sliding question. Wine goes bad, eventually, as does liquor, unless it's stored under very controlled conditions. Beer has the shortest of shelf lives, but still can easily keep for over a year simply by being cellared. I would wager number is really closer to 3% rather than 7%.

That number is quite wrong, especially given pre-Industrial Revolution packaging methods and materials. Even modern 3-4% beer, sterile-filtered, pasteurized and stored in sealed bottles in a cellar, will become unpalatable after a year or so. Beer without contaminant-suppressing ingredients stored in porous casks will spoil in days, no matter where or how well it's kept. Anyone knows that hops suppress contamination. It's also well known that an ABV of ~7% is sufficient to suppress rapid bacterial contamination. It is possible for microflora such as Brettanomyces to still metabolize residual sugars, but the process is long-term.

Making beverages from cereal grain isn't about long-term storage. It's about getting more bang for the cereal buck. You can get far more foodstuff (as well as more and different essential nutrients) from a given amount of grain from brewing than baking. And barley makes lousy bread.

Bob (Brewing historian)

"In no way did I infer that pre-industrial societies were aware of why heating water sanitizes it. Merely that the only process available to them was what we would now call pasteurization. "Cooking" makes a lot of indigestible foodstuffs edible. It isn't a leap to imagine people eventually sorted out that sufficient heat and time made safer, reliable food processing. "

The idea of sanitizing assumes that it is needed in the first place as sanitizing is a preventative process. Cider, perry and wine are not boiled but merely fermented juices, the ph and alcohol levels are responsible for the keeping down of bacteria etc.

Did alewives rinse out their leaden vats with boiling water to clean them or merely rinse them out?

Bad water makes for bad drinking, cooking, baking and brewing.

Hence my question and it was not solely as a response to you but it is a subject that comes up and it is only speculation.

"I think humans are hardwired to discern most nasty organic pollutants and therefore avoid them.

Indeed, if food or water smells so bad that it repulses you then it is likely to be very harmful so you avoid it, if the contaminants are not so visible then the likelhood is they get consumed anyway, eg cholera outbreaks in London right up the 19thc.

earnest carruthers wrote:Did alewives rinse out their leaden vats with boiling water to clean them or merely rinse them out?

It was known amongst monastic brewers at least - Europe's cutting edge brewing technologists from the fall of Rome to the Industrial Revolution - that scalding made for cleaner equipment than mere rinsing. While microbiology might have been unknown, practical experience taught quite a lot.

Etudes sur la Biere was just the formalization of that practical knowledge.

Bob

brewer wrote: - it's irresponsible to place too much emphasis on it.

That's a bit harsh. My point wasn't about turbidity but about the practice of consuming ale soon after primary fermentation - i.e. while it was still "quick." Admittedly, I could have been more concise.

While I agree that secondary fermentation produces little additional alcohol, it does affect suspension of protein, et cetera. Poorly modified homecrafted malts have very high protein and insoluble starch levels compared to modern malt. I'd really prefer not to get into a drawn out discussion about medieval brewing practice, out of the sheer tedium of it. As a brewing historian, you surely have read Bennett, Unger, Hornsey and Bamforth - who, in various recent publications, remind us what we call beer today is a very different product than our ancestors consumed.

brewer wrote: Making beverages from cereal grain isn't about long-term storage. It's about getting more bang for the cereal buck. You can get far more foodstuff (as well as more and different essential nutrients) from a given amount of grain from brewing than baking. And barley makes lousy bread.

Bob (Brewing historian)

So does rye, spelt, oats and peas. Yet all of them were used in medieval brewing at various times and places. I can't argue the specific nutritional merits of brewing vs baking though. I'd be curious to see a reference for that.

Wheat makes the best bread and rather good ale. Barley and rye happen to be more hardy and reliable crops than wheat. Although they don't make very good bread - alone - they provide substantial nutrition as porridge and unleavened breads. Unfortunately the sheer volume of cereal products a person needs to consume for adequate caloric intake is somewhat frightening. (see Pearson, "Nutrition and the Early-Medieval Diet", Speculum 72 (1997) pp15.) Brewing any malted cereals and consumption of resultant ale relieves the problem of excess fibre consumption. Too much fibre inhibits nutrient absorption. Great excuse to drink low alcohol, high carb sweet ales!

Kel
(Student of brewing history and technology)

"It was known amongst monastic brewers at least - Europe's cutting edge brewing technologists from the fall of Rome to the Industrial Revolution - that scalding made for cleaner equipment than mere rinsing. While microbiology might have been unknown, practical experience taught quite a lot.

Etudes sur la Biere was just the formalization of that practical knowledge.

Bob "

Thanks Bob, it was one of those questions that came up on this very subject elsewhere.

Kel Rekuta wrote:That's a bit harsh. My point wasn't about turbidity but about the practice of consuming ale soon after primary fermentation - i.e. while it was still "quick." Admittedly, I could have been more concise.

I had no intention of being harsh. Sorry if it came off that way.

I didn't see the point. Thank you for clarifying.

While I agree that secondary fermentation produces little additional alcohol, it does affect suspension of protein, et cetera. Poorly modified homecrafted malts have very high protein and insoluble starch levels compared to modern malt. I'd really prefer not to get into a drawn out discussion about medieval brewing practice, out of the sheer tedium of it. As a brewing historian, you surely have read Bennett, Unger, Hornsey and Bamforth - who, in various recent publications, remind us what we call beer today is a very different product than our ancestors consumed.

That's very true (and yes, I have those references). It's also true that procedures do and did exist to make the most of undermodified malts. People were smart back then, too, knew how to recognize slack malt and had methods of dealing with it in the brewhouse which made a fine product. I'm not sure how germane that is to the matter at hand, other than the presence of excessive proteins due to undermodification possibly impacting turbidity.

So does rye, spelt, oats and peas. Yet all of them were used in medieval brewing at various times and places.

Thank you for making my point.

I can't argue the specific nutritional merits of brewing vs baking though. I'd be curious to see a reference for that.

I'd assumed it was self-evident: yeast. Lots more yeast than is found in bread. B-complex vitamins and all that. Hm. I'm gonna have to find that journal article...but it'll have to be after Lilies (leaving tomorrow AM).

Wheat makes the best bread and rather good ale. Barley and rye happen to be more hardy and reliable crops than wheat. Although they don't make very good bread - alone - they provide substantial nutrition as porridge and unleavened breads. Unfortunately the sheer volume of cereal products a person needs to consume for adequate caloric intake is somewhat frightening. (see Pearson, "Nutrition and the Early-Medieval Diet", Speculum 72 (1997) pp15.) Brewing any malted cereals and consumption of resultant ale relieves the problem of excess fibre consumption. Too much fibre inhibits nutrient absorption. Great excuse to drink low alcohol, high carb sweet ales!

That's an awesome reference which I'm filing away for further study. Thank you!

Oh, and +infinity on my preference of ale to bread!

Bob