Yeast and Caffeine

To the left is a picture of USP grade "Anhydrous" caffeine. According to Wikipedia, "it may be synthesized from dimethyl urea and malonic acid."


UREA.


There are 3 achievements that every culture on the planet acquired so early in their development that one might be tempted to think that they are the prerequisites for civilization. They are Caffeine, Ethanol, and Bread (with an emphasis on sandwiches.)

Historical accounts and academic speculation suggests that ancient man woke up every morning, bleary-eyed and confused, and wandered around the campsite chewing on the landscaping in hopes that something would wake them up.

According to one popular Chinese legend, the Emperor of China Shennong, reputed to have reigned in about 3000 BC, accidentally discovered that when some leaves fell into boiling water, a fragrant and restorative drink resulted.

It is not revealed in the story why he was boiling water under a rapidly balding tree, but the British are certainly happy that he did.

An Ethiopian guy named Kaldi discovered that when goats ate coffee berries they got hyper. Most ancient culinary discoveries started with the phrase, "What are those goats eating?"

The west Africans gnawed on Kola nuts. Mayans had chocolate, which was probably the greatest reason for declaring war on them and taking all their stuff. North American Aboriginal Native American Indians boiled the leaves of a species of holly to make something they referred to as "The Black Drink." Awesome.

On to ethanol, the active ingredient in booze. Archaeologists have discovered evidence that quaffing was occurring as far back as 9000 years ago. This is not surprising, since it's just juice that's gone off. Really, all that was required for the discovery of alcohol was one really thirsty guy and a lack of options. Man, but once it was discovered, people pursued it.

Step 1: Try this on every other form of fruit juice.
Step 2: We ran out of fruit (note: get more grapes) Let's try um... how about grass seeds?
Step 3: Ok, now what? Think people! Um, potatoes? Cactus? Pine trees?!

Practically every form of food has had the, "It's good, but it doesn't make me loopy," test applied to it, and has come out the other side as an adult beverage. Mankind has yet to produce a true meat-based fermented beverage yet, but we are trying.

Bread, Tortilla, Naan, Pita, Matza, Roti, Bing (snrk).
Sandwiches, Burritos, Moo shu, Gyro, Shawarma.

Bread comes in many forms, all of them consisting primarily of ground seeds, liquid, and fat. Yeast was added early on, probably as a result of the above 3 step plan. (It's good, but did you try leaving it out for several days uncovered? It worked for the grape juice.)

And then the pinnacle of Lunch-science research (cue Also sprach Zarathustra) humanity across all continents considered moving the meat from beside the bread to inside the bread. The Sandwich was born, and was subsequently named after the guy who was probably the last person to think of it. Some guy in tights and breeches proclaims "I just thought about putting meat in bread!" while some middle eastern shepherds are wrapping drippy chunks of lamb in flatbread and saying, "yeah, way to be ahead of the curve there, Einstein."

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that I'm nearly done with story #1 of my 52 story New Year Resolution, except that it's actually a single chapter of a larger story. I decided to expand my definition to include chapters. Just so long as it is a complete chapter. No reason to get sloppy or lazy just because you can change the rules.