Beer has an enormous historic and cultural significance. It is the third most consumed beverage in the world, including water (the second is tea). Some of the earliest written documents of humanity refer to beer: The Babylonian code of Hammurabi includes laws regulating beer and the Sumerian “Hymn to Ninkasi”, which describes the production of beer, was both a prayer to the goddess of beer and alcohol, and a practical way to maintain and spread knowledge about brewing. Over the course of history, workers have been paid with beer (in ancient Egypt, and in Uruk, Mesopotamia) and in more recent years, workers have rioted over the price of beer (Bavaria, 1844 and Chicago, 1855).
Some have even gone as far as to propose that beer is responsible for the rise of human civilization. Going by the generally accepted start point of civilization as the moment where agriculture starts, the question arises: why were crops cultivated? Well, for food seems the obvious answer but the “beer before bread” theory argues that the first grains were actually planted to make beer.[1] Beer has also given rise to various legends such as the popular myth that people were drinking beer instead of water in the middle ages, for hygienic reasons.[2]
Various civilizations all over the world brewed beer, without influence from each other. Three distant examples are ancient Egypt, ancient China and the Incas. These beers had different base ingredients: in Egypt it was wheat and barley, flavored with dates and honey; in China the base was rice, flavored with honey, grapes and berries and Incan beer, also known as chicha, was made with corn.[3]
Different cultures had their own ways of producing the beverage. An encounter between brewers from distant parts of the world and the comical outcome will be the main subject of our story. It centers on Jean de Léry, a French protestant who migrated to the New World, hoping to escape religious prosecution and make a fresh start.
A big part of the land that’s now called Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese in 1500. Few months before another Portuguese fleet had landed in Brazil, commanded by one of the original captains of the first voyage to the new world. A ship was captured and eight men were killed by the indigenous population. Therefore, the newly arrived understood the importance of communicating and creating alliances with the local population. The colonization of Brazil followed a different model from the Spanish conquest. The Spanish conquerors found against them an organized State with centralized power and significant material resources and wealth. They defeated the Incan Empire militarily. The Portuguese found loosely organized tribes, mostly speaking the same family of languages but at times into conflict with each other. They proceeded on a colonization model that was more based on strategic alliances and assimilation.
In the first half of the 16th century, the Portuguese did not pay much attention to Brazil as the empire had recently colonized more lucrative regions, notably Angola and Mozambique in Africa. Subsequently, a small French expedition with some 600 soldiers and colons managed to settle and build a fort in a tiny island next to present-day Rio de Janeiro in 1555, and pass unnoticed by the Portuguese. The mission aimed also to establish a religious refuge for French and Swiss Protestants, who were prosecuted by Catholics in Europe. The project went well, and next year a ship was sent back to France and invited another 300 settlers. Here is where our protagonist enters the story: Jean de Léry a French shoemaker and converted Protestant joins the voyage with the promise of religious freedom. The promise turns out fake: few months later, tensions arise between Christians living in the new colony, especially regarding the Eucharist ritual. Jean de Léry, alongside with another 13 protestants are expelled from the fort.
Double-exiled (from Europe and then from the colony), their only way to survive is to befriend the indigenous population. They live for four months with the Tupinambá people and finally manage to return to Europe onboard a pirate ship. Later, Jean de Léry will be convinced by his friends to write a book describing in detail their experiences. The book, titled “History of a voyage to the land of Brazil” is our main source of information for this article. It’s a lengthy account of the customs and social organization of the Tupinambá, seen through the eyes of a European Christian.
The Tupinambá were brewing and drinking cauim, a beer made from manioc roots. Cauim could be consumed inconspicuously, by one or two people, but it was most commonly drunk in big feasts, reuniting tens or hundreds of people with beer, music, dancing, whistling and shouting. Cauim was heated in big clay pots and served warm. A fire was keeping the drink warm and women were taking care of it, stirring occasionally. The men were holding big cups made of dried gourds and passed by the fire to get a refill. They were finishing their cups in one go, while the women were sipping continuously between the servings. When they were totally wasted they would throw up and then start again and the feast could last for up to two or three days. Jean de Léry was so impressed by the alcohol consumption that he compared them to the biggest drinkers back in Europe. He wrote
“Allow me to say that (without approving of the vice) Germans, Flemish, mercenaries, Swiss and all of you who make it a profession to heavily drink […] after seeing how the Americans do it, you will have to admit that you concede in this domain”.
These feasts had a ceremonial character and would accompany almost every affair of general social interest. The Tupinambá would brew cauim and make a feast for the birth of a child, for the first menstruation of a girl, for the piercing of the lower lip of a boy, before departure for war, after return from war and during the ceremonial eating of a war prisoner.[4]
The brewing of Cauim was a collective ritual. The manioc roots were sliced into thin pieces and boiled in a big pot. The pot was then removed from the fire and cooled down. The women of the community would gather around the pot and take a handful from inside, place it in their mouth and chew it. After chewing for some time, they would spit it out and place it in a second pot. The Tupinambá believed that if men chewed the manioc roots the drink would not taste good. The second pot with the chewed manioc roots was also heated and then covered and left to ferment until they would drink it. Cauim was thick and turbid with an acidic flavor. It could also be made with maize, depending on the season.
Cauim must have been a tasty drink. It quickly became popular between the first colonizers of South America. They drank it during encounters with the native population and made it themselves too. Jean de Léry and his companions liked it and tried to make it. Because they were not any savage pagans but rather civilized and rational Christians, they skipped the disgusting step where the women collectively put the mixture in their mouth and chew it. After all, it was just a superstition, wasn’t it? Other than that, they followed the same recipe but there was a problem: the final product was undrinkable! Let’s see why.
It’s not very difficult to make beer (but to make it tasty, that’s an art). This is one of the reasons it was developed independently in so many different cultures. The base of the process is fermentation of sugars from a starch base, into alcohol. Yeast is responsible for the fermentation but this was only recently discovered (Louis Pasteur, 1859)[5]. Malt can undergo spontaneous fermentation from wild yeasts in the air. Then, the remains from a previous brewing, which contain yeast cells, can be used for the next one. Hops were added sometime during the 9th century. They are not necessary but give a pleasant bitter flavor and have preserving effects.
So beer is made with the fermentation of sugars into alcohol. However, yeast can only convert small sugars. Starch is a polysaccharide that cannot be fermented itself. For this reason, saccharifying is required, to break down starch into smaller, fermentable sugars. In cereal-based beers, this step is germination and malting. The crops are immersed into warm water; they germinate (i.e. they start to grow) and release enzymes, which will then break down the starch into smaller sugars. Yeast then converts these sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, giving beer its psychoactive effect and fizz.
In the case of cauim, chewing the manioc roots prepares them for fermentation. Enzymes present in the human saliva break down starch into fermentable sugars. Without this essential step, the yeast cannot ferment the mixture, resulting in something similar to a thick, warm, zero-alcohol manioc “beer”. Gradually though, Jean de Léry and his companions got used to the drink and did not find it repulsive.
Our society and our customs have a huge influence in what we consider disgusting or appealing, dirty or clean, savage or civilized. At times there can be some more essential, biological reasons we like or dislike things or some instinctive behaviours, but mostly we have to socially learn what is good and bad. This good and bad then, is contingent and subject to change, to suit the value system of each society. Through contact with a different value system, and given sufficient time, we are influenced and we can learn and unlearn various meanings that are attached to our actions.
Likewise, Jean de Léry, in the last pages of the chapter dedicated to cauim, in his book, shares his reflections about what is considered disgusting in South America and in Europe:
“Finally, I have no doubt that some of you, having read what I said here, about the chewing and twisting around of roots and millet from the mouth of savage women while making their drink, named cauim, will feel nauseous and will want to spit. To alleviate this disgust, I ask them to remind each other how we make wine, over here. Let them consider this: in the countries with the good wines, wine-makers get into tubes and vats and tread the grapes with their bare feet and sometimes even with their shoes. Many things take place, that don’t have more grace than the way the American women are accustomed to chew. And if they say on this: look, but by fermenting the wine the filth goes away; I respond to them that our cauim purges the dirt too, and regarding this point there is no more reason to believe the one than the other.”
[1] Here’s an opinion article that supports the beer before bread theory. It rests a theory though, and it’s not the dominant one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/how-beer-gave-us-civilization.html
[2] Yes, it’s a myth. If you’re not convinced you can read more about it here
https://history.howstuffworks.com/medieval-people-drink-beer-water.htm
[3] If you think that all these beers with the fancy ingredients sound very tasty and wonder why do we mostly drink boring lager beers today, you can blame the Reinheitsgebot, German purity regulation which limited the ingredients of beer to the following three: water, barley and hops. The regulations started in 1516 and have widely influenced modern beer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
[4] The Tupinambá also practiced cannibalism, which is overrepresented in films, books, and legends about them. We found it more interesting to focus on their tasty beer.
[5] Some types of bacteria can also ferment.
Corail 