07/01/2023
HISTORY
OF BANANA WINE
The practice of wine making is as old as our most ancient civilization and wine has played a central role in human culture for more than 8000 thousand years. In contrast to food and beverages that spoil quickly or that can spread disease; wine doesn’t spoil if stored properly; the alcohol in wine called ethanol is present in sufficient concentrations to kill disease causing microorganism, and throughout history, wine was often safer to drink than water or milk.(Bisson and Butzke, 2009). This properly was so significant that before the connection between microorganism, poor sanitation and disease was understood, ancient civilization regarded wine as a gift from the gods because it protected against diseases. (Bisson and Butzke, 2009) According to Desroseir and Desroseir, 1997 in their book titled”The Technology of Food Preservation” it reported that wine and beer or similar fermented products originated in antiquity. Alcoholic beverages were discovered by man in many areas on earth. There was a fermented cactus juice known to certain tribes in the southwest, but evidently alcohol was not a commodity in America as it was in the ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Oriental civilization. They went further to say that the ability to produce pleasant, palatable effervescent beverages by fermentation of natural juices is a demonstration of man’s inherent ingenuity. From the earliest recorded history. Wine and beer have been important items of trade. Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest known production of wine, made by fermented grapes, took place in Georgia and Iran, from as early as 6000BC. David, (2003) and Berkowitz, (1996). Wine probably appeared in Europe at about 4500BC in what is now Bulgaria, and Greece, and was very common in ancient Greece, Thrace and Rome. Wine has also played an important role in religion throughout history. The Greek god Dionysus and the Roman equivalent Bacchus represented wine, and the drink is also used in Catholic Eucharistic ceremonies and the Jewish Kiddush. Whiter, (2001). A 2003 report by archaeologists indicates a possibility that grapes were used together with rice to produce mixed fermented beverages in China in the early years of 7000BC. Pottery jars were found to contain traces of tartaric acid and organic compounds commonly found in wine. (McGovern, et al. 2003) In the culinary sense, fermentation is the transformation and preservation of food by bacteria. While the process of fermentation as a culinary practice dates back to early human civilization, it took a very long time before the scientific principles were understood. However, archaeological studies have shown that fermentation technologies were well-established components of ancient civilizations, and there is even evidence that the concept of “starter” cultures were widely appreciated and maintained. Fermentation is defined as a metabolic process in which bacteria transform glucose into acid, alcohol, or gas in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic). Fermentation occurs in muscles, bacteria, and yeast. Louis Pasteur discovered fermentation in 1857. In 1857 he demonstrated that lactic acid corrosion is caused by a microorganisms. In 1860 he recognized that job of microorganism prompted pasteurization. Production of banana wine is mostly at a small-scale level, though attempts have been made to bring it up to industrialized production, and there are commercial producers of banana wine. Since the early 2000s, attempts have been made to expand banana wine production to other countries where the crop is prevalent. The Philippines government has sought to expand a local banana wine industry, while India has produced both award-winning banana wines and research into expanding production.
History
Bananas are thought to have been first domesticated in Southeast Asia, and their consumption is mentioned in early Greek, Latin, and Arab writings; Alexander the Great saw bananas on an expedition to India. Shortly after the discovery of America, bananas were taken from the Canary Islands to the New World, where they were first established in Hispaniola and soon spread to other islands and the mainland. Cultivation increased until bananas became a staple foodstuff in many regions, and in the 19th century they began to appear in the markets of the United States. Although Cavendish bananas are by far the most-common variety imported by nontropical countries, plantain varieties account for about 85 percent of all banana cultivation worldwide. The banana plant is a gigantic herb that springs from an underground stem, or rhizome, to form a false trunk 3–6 metres (10–20 feet) high. This trunk is composed of the basal portions of leaf sheaths and is crowned with a rosette of 10 to 20 oblong to elliptic leaves that sometimes attain a length of 3–3.5 metres (10–11.5 feet) and a breadth of 65 cm (26 inches).
A large flower spike, carrying numerous yellowish flowers protected by large purple-red bracts, emerges at the top of the false trunk and bends downward to become bunches of 50 to 150 individual fruits, or fingers. The individual fruits, or bananas, are grouped in clusters, or hands, of 10 to 20. After a plant has fruited, it is cut down to the ground, because each trunk produces only one bunch of fruit. The dead trunk is replaced by others in the form of suckers, or shoots, which arise from the rhizome at roughly six-month intervals. The life of a single rhizome thus continues for many years, and the weaker suckers that it sends up through the soil are periodically pruned, while the stronger ones are allowed to grow into fruit-producing plants.
https://rockedu.rockefeller.edu/component/biochemistry-fermented-foods/?fbclid=IwAR2Xz-LlBmdOhBTZXiN2iS7kzalGPyNsJrfdLAYfnZIyUjXj7uUC-Izn3Ug
