Humans enjoyed blue cheese and beer 2,700 years ago: study

[Klaralven]

It's no secret that beer and cheese go hand in hand -- but a new study reveals how deep their roots run in Europe, where workers at a salt mine in Austria were gorging on both up to 2,700 years ago.

Scientists made the discovery by analyzing samples of human excrement found at the heart of the Hallstatt mine in the Austrian Alps. The study was published in the journal Current Biology on Wednesday.

Frank Maixner, a microbiologist at the Eurac Research Institute in Bolzano, Italy, who was the lead author of the report, said he was surprised to learn that salt miners more than two millennia ago were advanced enough to "use fermentation intentionally."

"This is very sophisticated in my opinion," Maixner told AFP. "This is something I did not expect at that time."

The finding was the earliest evidence to date of cheese ripening in Europe, according to researchers.

And while alcohol consumption is certainly well documented in older writings and archaeological evidence, the salt miners' feces contained the first molecular evidence of beer consumption on the continent at that time.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that not only were prehistoric culinary practices sophisticated, but also that complex processed foodstuffs as well as the technique of fermentation have held a prominent role in our early food history," said Kerstin Kowarik of the Museum of Natural History Vienna.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211013-humans-enjoyed-blue-cheese-and-beer-2-700-years-ago-study

[PoliticAverse]

1. Now we know who to blame for that cheese!! n/t

[grumpyduck]

2. I dunno, it seems like a stretch

to state that the miners themselves were brewing the beer and making the cheese. Tradespeople were around back then, so they could have just purchased them.