This looked like a fun read:
Wild chimpanzees filmed by scientists bonding over alcoholic fruit
The article speculates about a possible role for fermented fruit in the origins of the practice we know as feasting. Thanksgiving and Christmas would be two familiar examples. Apparently, other primates beat us to it.
Chimpanzees, according to the article, do not ordinarily share their food with one another, but will make an exception in the case of fermented mangos. Who knew?
It’s easy to understand how primates and other animals discovered fermentation– it happens naturally when fruit is left to lay around. I wondered if it was the alcohol in the fruit that promoted friendly feelings among the chimps, the way alcoholic drinks do for humans at parties.
Maybe the chimps even broke out in song, like the Irish sometimes do in pubs (kidding).
Scientists have long wondered how humans were first exposed to intoxicating substances, and not only alcohol. Take hallucinogens: The theory is that during the early days of civilization, alert observers noticed that when the birds ate the seeds from certain plants, their behavior changed noticeably. Timing would have been important: The seeds have the right chemical content at certain times of year and not others.
Curious bystanders presumably helped themselves to some of those seeds, and wound up with a very interesting story to relate to the folks back in the village.
In these humble origins lay the roots of today’s alcoholic beverages. Beer, made from barley, is thought to have been developed by the Sumerians, in what is now Iraq– around 8,000 BC. Wine made its first appearance in Eastern Europe, around 6000 BC, and the Greeks got involved in winemaking perhaps 1500 years later.
Somewhere along the line, fermented grapes became the fruit of choice for winemakers, and so it is today.
Much, much later– the 8th Century AD– an Arab alchemist invented a primitive device for distillation of alcoholic beverages, and that meant a dramatic increase in the alcohol content of favorite drinks.
Ironically, Islam, the dominant religion in the Middle East, subsequently prohibited the consumption of alcohol in any of its forms.
Anyway, that’s how it all began. And here we are, thousands of years later, still dealing with the consequences.
