Michael Pollan's "Cooked" Series and Belly Button Beer

I enjoyed the second 2 episodes of "Cooked" last night (as I started a new needle point. I mention that because I could stitch and listen, rather than watch.) I read, and loved, the book a couple of years ago. As my readers might imagine, I was particularly intrigued by the 'earth' section of the book, about fermentation. As perhaps my readers recall, I make my own kefir (both milk and water), pickles, yogurt, kombucha (I've tried both coffee and tea), and hard cidre. I even have a 1/2 bottle of concord grapes percolating, but I do not have high hopes for that.

I was going to share this following tidbit from the Week Magazine regardless, but combining these two pieces of information seemed worthwhile.

In the television show, Michael Pollan indicates that we do not know when humanity took the bubbling wheat porridge and cooked it to make bread. He does indicate that perhaps we started farming so that we might have alcohol... as we gathered and then located a source of sugar that we might turn in to alcohol. He does not mention, as one might conclude, that bread is the solid form of beer.... But that is neither here nor there for my observation.

I was intrigued by Michael Pollan's idea that a bowl of porridge was left on it's own by mistake and yeast and other microbial life forms found their way to that source of food. For here we have a delightful story of young people naturally recreating that fermentation 'Big Bang':

Australian brewers have created a tangy new beer using an unusual, locally sourced ingredient: yeast grown from their own belly-button fluff. Staff at Melbourne’s 7 Cent craft brewery began by swabbing their belly buttons and cultivating yeast colonies. One fragrant strain went into Belly Button Beer, a white beer with hints of “fresh orange zest and toasted coriander seeds,” the brewery said. Company founder Doug Bremner said drinkers shouldn’t be put off by the yeast’s origins. “Yeast is yeast,” he said. “This beer is no different from any other beer out there.

Though the Week Magazine put the above tidbit in their 'It Must Be True, I Read it in the Tabloids' section of their publication, the Smithsonian shared it here: Australians make beer out of belly button lint