What I'm Reading: Ancient Brews

Ancient Brews, by Penn biomolecular archeologist Patrick McGovern, explores the alcoholic beverages our distant ancestors enjoyed and how we know that.

Dr. McGovern first explains how he uses various molecular sampling techniques to determine the ingredients found in the residue of an ancient cup, amphora, or pottery vessel. For instance, if his tests find tartaric acid in a sample, that's an indicator that the vessel the sample if from once held grape juice or wine.

In succeeding chapters, he tells of his trips to various archeological sites around the world to discover what the ancient Iranians, Egyptians, Etruscans, Scandinavians, Incans, and others liked as a tipple, followed by his attempt, along with Dogfish Head brewery chief brewer Sam Calagione, to recreate the ancient beverage in the modern day. Each chapter includes a recipe for a homebrewer who might himself like to try to create the ancient beverage (good luck! Some of the recipes are fairly complicated and call for obscure herbs or other ingredients that might not be that easy to come by) as well as a recipe for a complementary food pairing.

Because I recently listened to the Modern Scholar lecture series on the Incan Empire by Dr. Terence D'Altroy, the most interesting chapter to me in Dr. McGovern's book was the one on chicha, the corn beer brewed by the ancient Incans. It is still a popular drink today in modern Peru, often still made using the ancient method of chewing the corn kernels and spitting them out into a big bowl to get the fermentation started. (Yes, for Dr. McGovern's recreation of the beverage, there's a great photograph of him and Sam and their colleagues sitting around, chewing and spitting the red corn.) The alcohol kills any harmful bacteria in the resulting drink, by the way, so it's perfectly sanitary, if disgusting by our modern standards.

I learned a lot from this book. My main impression of ancient beverages is that our ancestors basically mixed together everything they had--wine, mead, beer, plus lots of herbs--into one giant grog. Even when the wine culture took over in the Mediterranean, the ancients mixed it with pine resin as a preservative, and lots of other herbal additives as well. In Europe into the Middle Ages, a grog known as gruit was one of the most popular drinks. It seems our modern, purer conception of distinct drink categories that should not be mixed is a more recent phenomenon.

All in all, a fun and informative book, obviously great for beer drinkers, but really of interest to anybody who wants to know about what ancient cultures ate and drank, as well as the work of  archeologists in the subfield of cuisine archeology.

What I've Been Eating: Sisters Thai

Alas, I have not been a good blogger this month!  And I have stuff to post, too--reading and writing goals for the New Year, book reviews, etc.  I'll get to them another day.  For tonight, I'd like to extol my favorite restaurant: Sisters Thai, on University Avenue in Fairfax, VA.

Sisters Thai is an easy three-block walk from our house.  It opened last spring, and we've eaten there probably half a dozen times since then.  I've had places before where I've liked eating, but this is the first time I've ever absolutely fallen in love with a restaurant.  The best word to describe it is cozy.  Delicious works too, unpretentious might not be out of line, but cozy is the most apropos.  I'm not sure if it's the way they knew us by our second visit; or because I've never had a bad meal there; or because the sauvignon blanc is just perfectly sweet and tangy to match with spicy food; or the way people draw little pictures and write quotes in the blank spaces on the menu; or the way each table gives you a different view of the full bookshelves, Thai artwork, toys, and photos decorating the place; or the way the staff is extremely friendly but just a little bit inattentive--not so much as to annoy, but enough to allow for conversation; or just the whole laid back vibe of the place.

So tonight when we arrived (just Lee and me, the kids are at a Tae Kwon Do parents-night-out party), it was Friday night and we hadn't made reservations so we sat at the bar for a while.  The owner of the place, a charming and disarmingly cheerful lady, came over and chatted us up for a few minutes (!), remembered that we have two kids (!!), and brought us our wine and frozen green tea slush herself (!!!).  We had also realized since our last visit that the Thai menus decorating the wall are actual menus, different than the normal menus they bring you, with a list of Thai street food options.  So as many times as we've been here, and there are still options we don't even know about!  I had roasted duck on rice, and Lee chicken soup with rice noodles.  Nothing fancy, but everything is so good!  A perfect balance of food, atmosphere, and service, and all done so joyously you don't realize until afterwards how much work must have gone into it.  Quite reasonably priced, too--not cheap, but the bill always seems to be a little under what I expected.  If you find yourself in Fairfax at some point, I highly recommend a visit to Sisters Thai.