S.B. Feldman:

Thanks for the insight!

-Rob


>>In a message dated 6/19/99 3:27:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
><< Please correct me if I am not aware of such evidence, but I don't think
>  fermented anything would be available to a H-G. I know some South
>American
>  tribes make fermented liquids, but I don't think it a regular part of the
>  diet.  It is just used for rituals. >>
>Quite to the contrary, I find it difficult to imagine how these people
>could
>have avoided being familiar with and making the most of fermentation. The
>simplest example of grapes that were picked and not immediately consumed
>but
>placed in a container such as a gourd or skin of some sort, comes to mind.
>The fermentation starts immediately and is ongoing. The 'blush' of the
>grape
>is the source of the micro-organisms that do the work of fermenting the
>grape
>sugar. It would not be long before someone tasted that grape-mush and
>discovered the fermented product. After a longer time and as fermentation
>proceeds the result would have changed the initial alcoholic mush into a
>vinegar mush. It is even simpler to imagine these people coming across
>larger
>fruit that begin fermenting after having fallen to the ground. Cows eat
>apples that have appreciable content of alcohol and continue to do so to
>intoxication! It is probably more appropriate to assume that all of the
>fermentedfoodstuffs would have been encountered by one or another group.


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