The Power of Fermentation and Food: Kombucha and Bread

Now before this class, I have only briefly heard of SCOBY. I watched a Youtube video with mild interest talking about growing your SCOBY, but I never thought I would ever see one in real life, let alone take one home. I'm sure everyone has heard of Kombucha, even if they have never drank it (like me) through memes. Notably, the Kombucha Girl meme where a girl films herself trying Kombucha for the first time and her reaction to the taste is what created a viral meme. It just so happens to coincide with the overall trend of Kombucha drinking. However, in the article "Kombucha Tea—A Double Power of Bioactive Compounds from Tea and Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeasts (SCOBY)," Kombucha has gone in and out of style since 414 A.D. when Dr. Kombu introduced it to the Emperor of Japan to aid in his stomach issues. Until this week, I did not realize how much food we eat every day was a product of fermentation like Kombucha. There is bread which, until this week, I did not know there was the fermentation process; maybe it is because it's called "proofing." Even vinegar uses SCOBY, but there is also kimchi, soy sauce, ginger beer, and rice wine. Regardless, SCOBY and bread represent one of the numerous ways the fermentation process. 

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On a brief note, as for my SCOBY, I'm pretty sure it is dying. When I got home, I wrapped it in a wire that I found to keep its shape. However, the wire turned black and made the liquid in the jar black. I made some black tea and sugar to replace the liquid, but who knows how long it will live. 

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My current dying SCOBY

As for my bread, that was a different story. I do not own a dutch oven or anything to put the dough in the oven, but I was able to find a bread oven that sits on the counter and makes the bread. It did not come with an instruction manual, but I was able to find it online. The machine does all the kneading and proofing for me, so it was a very hands-off experience. There were multiple bread recipes available, and I chose to make Sweet Bread for various reasons. As seen in one of this week's readings, specifically the "Collective Bread Diaries: Cultural Identities in an Artificial Intelligence Framework" by Haytham Nawar and in the Netflix episode Air for the show COOKED, bread has been seen and eaten throughout history. As a history student, bread has been mentioned briefly, but Nawar's article and the Netflix episode shed more light on how integral bread is in human history. Sweet Bread differed from the other bread recipes listed because it had sugar, butter, and eggs. It sounded delicious, but it would showcase the difference between this bread and other bread.

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As mentioned in both Nawar's article and COOKED, bread is a staple for many diets, which reminded me of my Medival European History courses, specifically when we discussed the diets of Medival people. More specifically, we compared the diets between medieval peasants and the lords that ruled over them. Bread was a staple in the diet of both groups and was considered the universal crop during the period (Winks and Ruiz, 117). However, the lords' bread differed from what the peasants ate (Winks and Ruiz, 117). Lords and monks mainly ate white bread, which, as demonstrated in COOKED, requires more processing and refining to make it less coarse. White bread was considered the "food of the angels" and was the purest way to eat bread.

On the other hand, the peasants mainly ate black bread or rye bread, which, unlike white bread, was made out of coarse grains. Ironically, the peasants were eating the more nutritious version of bread. Despite that, white bread was still the more desirable one even today. This distinction in bread between the elite and the lower classes was also demonstrated during the French Revolution. The infamous "Let them eat cake" quote, which was initially "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," refers to not actual cake but brioche bread made with lots of eggs, sugar, and butter. Again ingredients that would not have been available to lower classes. While it is important to note that this quote was not attributed to the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette till almost a century after the revolution according to Framm. It demonstrates the food insecurity of the lower classes and the distinction between the rich and the poor and how a food staple such as bread showcases that.

Despite the commercialization of bread, we still see it being integral to everyone's lives. A notable example was the beginning of the pandemic when everyone was obsessed with making their own bread, causing a shortage of yeast and flour available in stores. From that came the trend of people trying to make their own sourdough starters, which, as showcased in COOKED, was the first way people were able to make leavened bread. I don't know it seems like making bread is just part of the human experience, and everyone should do it at some point. I plan one day to buy a dutch oven so that I can actually make my own bread and not have a machine do it for the full experience. 

 

Works Cited

Antolak, Hubert, et al. “Kombucha Tea—A Double Power of Bioactive Compounds from Tea and Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeasts (SCOBY).” MDPI, 3 September 2021, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/10/10/1541/htm. Accessed 10 April 2022.

Framm, Ava. ““Bread and not too much talking!”: The Role of the Peasant in the French Revolution.” JayScholar, 1 May 2021, https://jayscholar.etown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=hisstu. Accessed 10 April 2022.

Molinet, Jennifer, and Francisco A. Cubillos. “History and Domestication of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in Bread Baking.” Frontiers, 11 November 2020, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2020.584718/full. Accessed 10 April 2022.

Rubel, William. Bread: A Global History. Reaktion Books, 2011. Accessed 10 April 2022.

Winks, Robin W., and Teofilo F. Ruiz. Medieval Europe and the World: From Late Antiquity to Modernity, 400-1500. Oxford University Press, 2005.