Check out this very funny book review in today's New York Times. It's about a new book called The Joy of Drinking. Robert R. Harris's review begins thusly:
It’s odd the books people get asked to review. Take this one, a carefree history of our long love affair with drinking. I have no training as a historian, just some slight experience on both sides of bars. And perhaps an exaggerated reputation for disparaging today’s ubiquitous alcohol-free business lunches. Barbara Holland [the author of the book], though, might empathize. She reminds us that in 1787, two days before their work was done, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention “adjourned to a tavern for some rest, and according to the bill they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 of whiskey, 22 of port, 8 of hard cider and 7 bowls of punch so large that, it was said, ducks could swim around in them. Then they went back to work and finished founding the new Republic.” Note the 55 delegates and 54 bottles of Madeira. Which founder was slacking?
Funny. And gives our current puritanism about alcohol a long perspective.
Very long. Holland cites archaeological evidence, from China and the Middle East, of early production of booze.
Some ten thousand years ago our ancestors gave up wandering around eating whatever came to hand and settled down to raise crops. Planting and harvesting was much more work than picking whatever they passed by, but incentives came with it. If you could stay in one place and cultivate fairly stable crops of peaches, rice, apples, berries, grapes, honey, potatoes, barley, wheat, milk, cactus, corn, sugarcane, coconuts, or practically any other organic substance, even if you didn't understand the science involved, it would presently ferment into a drink that made you forget your troubles and feel better about life.
William Faulkner, who knew a thing or two about it, observed that civilization begins with fermentation.
If you want to read the entire first chapter of the book, click here.
Let's raise a glass to Ms. Holland, lads!
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