In Egypt, slaves had Bouza more than 4000 years ago. In Russia, Kvass has been drunk by proletariats under Stalin. Each of these cases is a poor people with neither advanced technology nor access to a knowledge repository like the internet.

So, why does every article on homebrewing seem to imply that making wine is akin to rocket science?

Microorganisms colonize a medium, and convert its sugars into alcohol and CO2. If they do it faster than bacteria, you get beer or wine. Slower, you get scum. With adequate sugar and temperature, yeast usually wins out. It's that simple. This is why people have been fermenting things as a way of preserving them for millenia. Fermentation of something is not more likely to spoil, it resists spoilage -- that's its entire purpose! Ancient Egyptians didn't have refrigerators to hold their bread. They had Bouza.

I recently let a loaf of sourdough go stale (accidentally) and wouldn't let myself throw it away. Instead, I figured I'd re-ferment it as a beverage. Here's the recipe and what I did:

Break the bread into pieces and add to approx 1 gallon of water, with ginger and sugar. Boil for 15 minutes, then add mint, lemon juice and sourdough starter and turn off heat. Let sit for a few hours (even overnight -- this stage of the fermentation makes it a great digestif) covered, before straining into a glass jar, jug or bottle. Those 1 gallon glass apple cider jugs are great for this. Stick a balloon on top, to keep out bugs and to use its inflation as a gauge of the drink's fermenting.

This will improve from one to two weeks, but I find it drinkable after two days. Of course, what I find "drinkable" is what most would say is a bit like "drinking a sourdough starter." It's an acquired taste, but it gives you a more slightly visceral understanding of the lives of people who survived on this process, and an appreciation for something that is, if nothing else, completely real. Nothing mass-produced in a wealthy studio can compare to this taste and texture, no matter how "street" its marketing gimic is. This is a true cultural artifact: investing time and energy by yourself, to preserve a food item you just can't afford to throw away, using a method that was alive before there was a written record.

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