UNAM
Revista Digital Universitaria
Revista Digital Universitaria ISSN: 1607 - 6079 | Publicación mensual | 1 de agosto de 2014 vol.15, No.08

ABSTRACT

Former food biotechnology: fermented foods



Carmen Wacher Rodarte


When human beings became sedentary creatures, agriculture and animal raising where invented as means to supply for their alimentary needs. Then arose the question of food preservation and ancient cultures soon discovered that, in some cases, food could be transformed over time to become stable, healthy and even tasty nutritional goods. It is said that this is how the "domestication" of fermented food was invented. These kind of fermented products became an important part of ancient diets: yeast, bacteria and fungus where then empirically incorporated to the process of food production. There is a considerable amount of evidence, in decorative drawings for instance, that represent the ingredients and tools used in this process as well as the posterior description in codex of the elaboration of products such as "pulque". In the same way as agriculture was established in different cultures, the fermenting process of microbiological transformation of cereals and fruit appeared simultaneously around the ancient world: wheat, barley and rice producing wine and beer in Europe, and corn for "pozol" and "pulque" in our continent. Furthermore, in the Mesoamerican region, corn became a profound cultural value to the extent that the Popol Vuh and other ancient documents state that Mesoamerican men were created from this cereal. Many of these culinary products are still in use preserving their traditional background. Even so, the systematic studies of microorganisms at the base of fermented prehispanic food products are recent and incomplete. Besides the physiological interest that these microorganisms may arise, they can be used as means to create fermented products in controlled environments. It is thus an important challenge for national biotechnology to profit from the acquainted knowledge bestowed by this kind of ancient process for the improved of actual food production.

Keywords: Fermentation, lactic acid bacteria, maize.