Cultures of Humans, Cultures of Microbes; Food and Globalization
In the article Cultures and Cultures: Fermented Foods as Culinary 'Shibboleths' by Jonathan Brumber-Kraus and Betsy Dexter Dyer, the biology and religious cultural contexts for the presence of shibboleths in food is explored. The article defines shibboleths as a food that distinguishes one culture from another. These foods generally involve a fermentation component. For this reason the culture of the food has a particularly strong biological role in its development. Two of the three biological reasons for shibboleths explained in the article are: " 1. The original fermenting communities of microbes were (and many still are) no more than the indigenous microbes of a particular region and of its human population. Microbes from local soils and waters confer a characteristic ‘terroir’ by tumbling into open buckets of milk and vats of grape juice. The indigenous microbiota dwelling in and on humans produce not only familiar body odors and flavors but also those same nua...