Wine and Cheese

(from mud-brick.com)
Coffee and tea, cheese and wine, chocolate and vanilla, bread and prosciutto, dill pickles and sauerkraut, the list of delicacies goes on. They all have in common the fermentation process. Humans use it imaginatively, so that what starts as a simple change of sugar to alcohol – leads into an array of gregarious possibilities.

Bars and tea houses, restaurants, music concerts, and house parties: were it not for fermentation, would people get together at these pleasure spots? Would places like these routinely exist in the time-space of human environment?

But the gathering spots are not only that – they also cultivate opportunities to create and innovate, which among other things lead to the creation of dependencies (and writing, taxes, civilization…). Without a utilitarian grasp of fermentation process, none of the venues above would have existed as we know them. Nor would we survive winters as easily. And no cinema. Or at least that is how the story goes, read more: