A History of the World in Six Glasses: Summary
Beer
The discovery of beer happened around 10000 BCE. The hunter-gatherers, located in the Fertile Crescent, collected cereal grains because they could be stored for a number of months if kept dry and safe. The storage of grains made it harder to have a nomadic lifestyle; therefore the people started staying in one place. They would try to make water tight storage areas, however water did eventually get into them. After the grain would get wet and the people would cook it, it turned into gruel and when that was left sitting around for a few days it would turn into beer. Beer became important because it was safer to drink, due to the fact that you cooked it which got rid of bacteria. In the …show more content…
This effect is what made wine a part of many ceremonies. 1. Unlike beer Greeks and Romans watered down their wine before drinking it. Wine was drunk by everyone, however in Rome the richest citizens drank the finest wines and the poorest citizens drank lesser vintages. Wine was more of a sign of wealth than that of beer. Wine was a bigger part of medicine. It was believed that wine would reduce phlegm and was able to cure colds, but should be avoided when you have a fever. Beer was used in many different religions, but wine was most closely associated with Christianity. The wine was used in a form of sacred communion by the Greeks and Romans. 2. Wine was drunk at formal parties also known as symposia, where drinkers would try to outdo each other in wit, poetry, or rhetoric. Greece was the first place where wine was being made for a commercial product. Wine was one of Greece’s main exports and was traded by sea. The age and kind of wine that you drunk indicated how cultured you were, the finer and older the better. 3. At first Greeks thought that if you drank any alcohol other than wine you were barbaric. After Greece started to grow more vines and produce more wine, it became more widely available. At that point even slaves were able to drink it. Now what mattered to the Greeks was the type of wine. Greeks believed that the kind of wine you drank and its age indicated how cultured you