Siglo XIX, La alianza del Pobre y el Probiótico

Esta es la increible historia, de un mercado popular que nació y se extendió por el mundo occidental, en la comercialización, de la llamada "Cerveza de Jengibre" o en inglés "GingerBeer", y que durante décadas compitió contra la cerveza manufacturada y otras bebidas refrescantes o gaseosas.

Finalmente sirvió según se cree para la identificación y primer estudio científico sobre la fermentación simbiótica, de microorganismos, hoy englobados en el término probióticos.

Posiblemente al hablar de "Ginger-beer plant" estamos hablando de Kefir de Agua adaptado a la solución azucarada con limón y genjibre, sea como fuere, la lucha entre probióticos libres de patentes y mercado neoliberal globalizado, acababa de empezar ya hace más de 150 años.

En un artículo de Henry Mayhew, nos habla de como era la forma de vida, para las clases más pobres de la inglaterra victoriana, de los productos que se comercializaban por la calle a bajo coste y baja calidad y como uno de ellos era la "Ginger-Beer":

"The drinkables are tea, coffee, and cocoa; ginger--beer, lemonade, Persian sherbet, and some highly-coloured beverages which have no specific name, but are introduced to the public as “cooling” drinks; hot elder cordial or wine; peppermint water; curds and whey; water (as at Hampstead); rice milk; and milk in the parks. "... "Cyder-cups perhaps he would not get; but there would be ‘gingerbeer from the fountain, at 1d. per glass;’ and instead of mulled claret, he could indulge in hot elder cordial; whilst for dessert he could calculate upon all the delicacies of the season, from the salads at the corner of Wych-street to the baked apples at Temple Bar. None of these things would cost more than a penny a piece; some of them would be under that sum; and since as at Verey‘s, and some other foreign restaurateurs, there is no objection to your dividing the “portions,” the boy might, if he felt inclined to give a dinner to a friend, get off under 6d. There would be the digestive advantage too of moving leisurely about from one course to another; and, above all, there would be no fee to waiters.”

En otro artículo esta vez de 1877, por J.Thomson y Adolphe Smith, titulado "MUSH-FAKERS" AND GINGER-BEER MAKERS, se analiza el fenómeno comercial de la cerveza de los pobres y los desencuentros entre vendedores callejeros de "Ginger-Beer" con fabricantes de bebidas al por mayor en la inglaterra Victoriana:

"ACCORDING to a rough estimate there must be about 300,000 gallons of ginger-beer sold per annum in the streets and immediate neighbourhood of London.

This summer beverage, therefore, represents an important trade, and it has the further advantage of giving employment to a number of indigent persons who would otherwise, probably, fall on the rates. The trade requires but little capital, no skill, and scarcely any knowledge. A pound or thirty shillings would suffice to start a man or woman in this business, and a recipe for the brewing of ginger-beer is easily obtained. The difficulty, if any, consists of boiling the ginger in the large volume of water employed. For instance, three pounds of ginger are generally used for nine gallons of water, and will make altogether a gross of ginger-beer.

The poor who make ginger-beer do not, however, possess stew-pans that will hold nine gallons; and, therefore, do not scruple to resort to the copper. This disgusting habit of boiling ginger in the same vessel which serves for washing the dirty linen of several families is, I fear, extensively practised, nor is it thought in any way derogatory to the value and popularity of the drink.

The ginger-beer seller who initiated me into this mystery acknowledged that he used the copper in his house, after the other lodgers had finished washing and boiling their clothes, and did not for a moment anticipate that I should take exception to such a practice. When the strength of the ginger has been extracted by boiling, a little lemon acid, some essence of cloves, loaf sugar, and yeast have to be added. The mixture can then be bottled, and should be left to stand twenty-four hours. If, however, the stock has suddenly fallen short, either through excessive demand, resulting from the sudden advent of hot weather, or in consequence of the small supply of bottles possessed by dealers whose capital is very limited, a larger quantity of yeast will produce effervescence much sooner. Further, to add to the sharpness which should result from the essence of lemon, some makers do not hesitate to employ a little oil of vitriol so that, after all, it is problematical whether the strict temperance advocate who remains faithful, even during the dog-days, to ginger-beer and lemonade, does not run as much risk of poisoning himself as the frequenters of public-houses. The various forms of lemonade, which are so often preferred to ginger-beer, present the same dangers, and may at times be productive of considerable mischief.

The present generation of street vendors have had, however, to compete against the great wholesale manufacturers, who employ the powerful aid of steam. The soda- water, lemonade, &c., produced in these large factories has at least the advantage of being clean, though often impregnated with lead.
A most experienced ginger-beer maker, a man who had served in the Indian army, and was accustomed to brew for his entire regiment, explained to me how he lost one of his best customers. He sold to a public-house keeper near London Bridge, about half-a-gross per week. On one occasion, while delivering his usual supply to the publican, there happened to be four gentlemen drinking ginger-beer at the bar, who noticed him. On leaving the public-house, these gentlemen passed by the barrow, on which his glasses and bottles were laid out to attract pedestrians. They had just paid fourpence a glass for the ginger-beer they had seen this man deliver over to the publican; and on tasting what he sold in the street for a penny, discovered it was precisely the same brew. Every one knows, who reflects on the subject, that the ginger-beer publicans sell for fourpence is not worth a halfpenny a bottle; but when these extortionate charges are rendered so apparent to the victims, they are apt to produce an irritating effect. Hence the gentlemen in question returned to the public-house, expressed their discontent in terms more forcible than elegant, and the publican was not a little disconcerted when it was conclusively proved before his assembled customers, that he realized more than three hundred per cent. on the sale of ginger-beer-selling bottles at fourpence which he had bought from a poor man for three farthings! This demonstration produced, however, a disastrous effect, so far as the ginger-beer seller was concerned. The publican, in a fury, not only refused to buy any more beer from him, but would not even return his empty bottles. The ginger-beer man was therefore compelled to take out a summons to recover his empty bottles, but I am pleased to add that the magistrate expressed his sentiments in strong terms, and compelled the publican to pay compensation for the time the ginger-beer seller had lost. Thus this publican ceased to patronize the street vendor, and, like the other members of his trade, ordered his supplies from the wholesale manufacturers, where he obtains the beer at the same price, if not cheaper, and does not run so much risk of being discovered in the extortions he practises.
The most fruitful ground for the sale of ginger-beer, lemonade, and the other summer drinks which can be conveyed on a barrow, is, undoubtedly, the open-air resorts, where on holidays crowds of people seek health and amusement. At Clapham Common - where the accompanying photograph was taken - Hampstead, Greenwich, Battersea Park, &c., &c., on a broiling summer's day, there is a great demand for light, refreshing drinks, and more than £1 may be taken during one day by those who have a sufficient supply of ginger-beer with them, or some friend who can bring a fresh stock in the course of the afternoon. In ordinary times, however, twenty shillings a week net profit is considered a very fair reward for selling ginger-beer in the streets.

Apart from the very hot days, and the pleasure-grounds around the metropolis, the best time and place for the sale is near the closed public-houses on a Sunday morning. The enormous number of persons who have spent their Saturday evening and wages in getting lamentably drunk, come out in the morning with their throats parched, and are glad of anything that will relieve the retributive thirst from which they suffer.

Ginger-beer, under these circumstances, is particularly effective in restoring tone and mitigating the consequences of intemperance; and these are facts which readily account for the large sales effected on Sunday mornings. Even this phase of the business is, however, barely to be relied upon in the winter months; but, as it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, what the itinerary ginger-beer dealer loses, the street vendor of umbrellas gains. Thus we have before us two men who interpret the weather in a diametrically opposed sense. Every shower clouds the brow of the man whose income depends on the consumption of the summer drinks, while rain brings business and money to the seller of umbrellas. These latter are divided into various classes, and work according to the degree of capital they possess.

The real "mush-fakers" are men who not only sell, but can mend and make umbrellas. Wandering from street to street, with a bundle of old umbrellas and a few necessary tools under their arm, they inquire for umbrellas to mend from house to house. When their services are accepted, they have two objects in view. First, having obtained an umbrella to mend, they prefer sitting out doing the work in the street, in front of the house. This attracts the attention of the neighbours, and the fact that they have been entrusted with work by the inhabitants of one house generally brings more custom from those who live next door. When the job is terminated, the "mush-faker" looks about him, as he enters the house, in quest of an umbrella which has passed the mending stage; and, in exchange for the same, offers to make a slight reduction in his charge. Thus he gradually obtains a stock of very old umbrellas, and by taking the good bits from one old "mushroom and adding it to an other, he is able to make, out of two broken and torn umbrellas, a tolerably stout and serviceable gingham."

Tanto fue el interés que despertaban estas bebidas producidas a mediados del siglo XIX, que aquel fermento casero llamó fuertemente la atención a unos de los científicos más afamados de la época, HARRY MARSHALL WARD, y decidió de este modo hacer una primera indagación con metodología científica del primer probiótico estudiado en la historia:

"In the middle eighties the organism known as the ginger beer plant came into special notice. Many botanists received specimens with requests for information regarding it.

As you know, the plant consists of lumps of gelatinous substance, which has been long in use in country districts for the manufacture of home-made ginger beer. When the gelatinous lumps are placed in a saccharine solution with some bits of ginger in a bottle, a fermentation is set up which results in the liquor so commonly used.

Mythical histories attached to the origin of the gelatinous mass―brought ­from the Crimea, Italy, and so on—and the plant handed on from family to family. In 1887 the plant came to Professor Marshall Ward, and he began an investigation—one which ultimately extended over several years.

The outcome of it was that the ginger beer plant was shown to be composed of two essential ingredient, plants, with several others present as accessory non-essential forms. Of the essential, one is a bacterium, B. verniforme, a distinct species, the gelatinous sheaths of which make up the jelly of the ginger beer plant. The other is a yeast, Sacharomyces pyriforme, also a distinct species, to which the alcoholic fermentation is due. Not only was this determined by analysis, but also by synthesis.

Further, the research led to the development of a new conception in that of symbiotic fermentation, i.e. the bacterium is favoured by obtaining some substance or substances directly they leave the sphere of metabolic activity of the yeast cells. The yeast, on the other hand, benefits by these substances being removed and destroyed, and amongst these the C02, which seems to be essential for the bacterium. (A comparison with the symbiosis of a gelatinous lichen naturally suggests itself.) This idea of symbiotic as compared with metabiotic, where one organism prepares only the ground for another, and antibiotic, where one organism ousts the other by poisoning the medium, is a fertile one.

I now come to speak of an investigation the labour of which would have daunted most men. I refer to that of the bacteriology of Thames water. This he undertook for the Royal Society in 1892, in conjunction with Professor Percy Frankland. The actual bacteriological part of the work was taken up by Marshall Ward himself. For work of this kind he was well prepared, having already published his views upon the characters employed in the classification of Schizomy­cetes. It is difficult for an outsider to realise the industry, the constant attention, required for this bacteriological work.

It involved the isolation and growing through all their life ­stages in pure culture of the many forms met with in the water and then the determination of their several capacities whether these made for health or disease in the user of the water containing them. But it was the kind of work in which Marshall Ward reveled. Such of the results as are published in the Reports of the Royal Society are compendious and thorough With his characteristic intuition, Marshall did not fail to follow up clues that might lead to framing a general conclusion, and one of the most valuable products of this bacteriological work was his demonstration that light arrests development of the bacteria and ultimately kills them. This was no more than might be expected, and had indeed been vaguely forestated.

But Marshall Ward went further, and by an elaborate series of experiments proved beyond question that the bactericidal action lay in the blue region of the spectrum. As a side issue the question of colour in bacteria in its relation to the action of light was a subject investigation, and its parasolar value was demonstrated. The line of work initiated by this discovery Marshall Ward had proposed to follow up through other processes of the vegetable kingdom, but had not accomplished this at time of his death.

The references that have been made will suffice to indicate the extent and far-reaching character of Marshall Ward’s work in Mycology, and one cannot but feel assured they establish his claim to be reckoned one of the great investigators of our time, who has not only added to sum of knowledge, but opened up new avenues to further victories over the unknown. "

Ginger-beer "plant"

Marriage of equals
Botanist Harry Ward discovered that the production of ginger beer

depended on two crucial microorganisms that coexisted in the ginger-beer plant

Summer was once the time to quaff ginger beer, served up in brown stone bottles. All over the British Isles people relished its frothy, fizzy gingery tang, enhanced by an alcohol content that temperance campaigners warned could rival that of strong London stout. Best of all it was virtually free: you could make it at home with just a bit of sugar, ginger, water and a ginger-beer "plant".

No wonder, then, that this plant was a family heirloom, passed from mother to daughter and father to son. But it wasn't your typical green, leafy kind of plant. This was a sloppy mess of whitish, gelatinous lumps that typically lived in a jam jar. Exactly what this stuff was, nobody had a due. It worked, and that was enough.
But in 1887, a 33-year-old botanist called Harry Marshall Ward became curious. When a famous friend at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, gave him a specimen, he was hooked. Unwittingly, he had embarked on a Herculean labour. "Had I known how long and difficult a task I had set myself," he later remarked, "the attempt would possibly have been abandoned at an early date."
EVERYONE knew that Harry Ward could never resist a challenge. On a visit to his old mentor, the director of Kew Gardens, Ward couldn't help but notice the bottle of ginger-beer plant, perched on a shelf in the director's study. "There is a thing you have to worry out," suggested William Thistleton Dyer, knowing all too well of Ward's penchant for botanical mysteries.

From now on Ward devoted every hour he could snatch from his job -teaching young men about to enter the in the Indian Forest Service to his hunt for the mysterious agent that transformed sweet, gingery water into a tasty and potent pint.
Ward had always been passionate about botany. While attending the revolutionary courses run by Darwin's champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, he had famously fainted at his microscope from sheer over-excitement. After his time with Huxley in London, Ward won a place to read natural sciences at Cambridge, and blossomed.
He went on to become a brilliant exponent of the "new botany". Radical ideas were spreading from mainland Europe, and he and his friends wanted to learn about how plants worked, not just how they were classified. He went on to become one of the great names of the day. Before he died aged just 52, reputedly of overwork, he pioneered the study of both symbiosis and pathology, investigating how plants and microorganisms live together as friend as well as foe.

Ward's first major study, as botanist to the colonial government of Ceylon, is now a classic of plant pathology. In 1879, the coffee plantations of Ceylon were threatened with extinction by a leaf disease. The disease was coffee rust, and for the next two years Ward worked out the life cycle of the rust fungus and showed how leaving belts of natural forest between the coffee plantations could prevent the spread of its spores. This was a brilliant piece of scientific detection, but it came too late. As the epidemic wiped out vast monocultures of coffee across the British colonies, the "mother country" quietly returned to drinking tea.
And ginger beer of course. Back in England and inspired by the "plant" from Kew, Ward set out to amass a comprehensive collection of specimens. Soon his laboratory shelves were crowded with jars of ginger-beer plants from all over the country, and even from North America. To this day, no one has ever worked out where the first ginger-beer plants came from. Rumour had it that soldiers had returned from the Crimean War with the stuff, but Ward said that was sheer speculation. "The whole question as to whence it was first derived, in fact, is enshrouded in mystery," he concluded. But he did solve the ultimate mystery, that of the plant's real nature. His meticulous analyses revealed it to be a fascinating alliance of cooperating microorganisms.

Everything turned on his scrupulous technique. Over the years, he had established nearly 2000 separate cultures, some of which he had to keep going for months or even years, as he struggled to separate and cultivate each microorganism in a pure state. To avoid contamination, he first ensured that every flask, beaker tube, funnel, watch glass and microscope slide was absolutely sterile. All apparatus was baked or boiled for several hours. Next, he concocted an extensive menu of nutrient broths to cater for every taste. The fussiest fungi dined on best bouillon made from lean beefsteak, finely chopped and soaked overnight in distilled water, then filtered and boiled. Even then, some microorganisms failed to thrive or resisted purification, and for these cases Ward perfected a way of isolating a single yeast cell in a "hanging drop" secured to a microscope slide, thus guaranteeing the culture's purity while he tracked down its identity.
His diligence paid off, for when he published his results in 1892 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no one questioned his astonishing announcement. Buried in this scholarly text is a biological bombshell. The ginger-beer plant, Ward proclaimed, was a new kind of organism - a "composite body", consisting of dozens of microorganisms living amicably together in a symbiotic lump. Not all of these microbes helped in making the beer. The majority Ward regarded as opportunistic interlopers. They turned up by chance, and hung around for the free lunch. But two organisms were present in every plant sampled, and seemed to be vital to the production of ginger beer.
One was a fungus, a new species of yeast he called Saccharomycespyriformis. The other was a bacterium, which he named Bacterium vermiforme, and is now called Brevibacterium vermiforme.
Ward reckoned that these two microbes had developed a symbiotic relationship, to their mutual benefit. He couldn't be sure of the biochemical details, but he guessed that the bacterium consumed the yeast's waste products, while the yeast benefited from their removal. Together, the two produced the essential ingredients of traditional ginger beer: carbon dioxide and alcohol. The conclusive proof came when Ward made perfect ginger beer in his laboratory, using his own plant, reconstituted from his pure cultures of the right yeast and bacterium.

So the ginger-beer plant was a bona fide "dual organism", rather like lichens. Everything pointed to a true symbiosis. For instance, when Ward tried to feed the bacteria with dead or feeble yeast cells, the experiments failed. The plant emerged only from a marriage of equals, which needed time: it took several days for the partners to find and embrace one another. No one could have predicted that the crude home brew of country folk would reveal a phenomenon new to science - what Ward called "symbiotic fermentation".
It was landmark research. Yet as the study of symbiosis fell out of fashion, Ward's work sank into obscurity. Vindication of a sort came half a century later, when a research team decided to investigate kefir. Ward had also been interested in this yogurt-like drink, made from fermented milk, and popular in the Caucasus mountains of southern Russia and Georgia, and he had begun to investigate its secrets. Legend has it that the Prophet Muhammad first gave kefir curds to Christians living near Mount Elbrus with strict instructions never to give them away. All the same, kefir curds did eventually turn up in a laboratory where, just as Ward had predicted, investigators identified a symbiotic collaboration between yeast and bacteria.
Years after Ward's pioneering work, Soviet researchers discovered a further instance of symbiotic fermentation. A yeast and a bacterium apparently cooperate to form the "tea fungus" or kambucha that thrives on sweetened tea. After a few days, the liquid acquires a pleasant acidity and a peculiar fruity taste that eastern Europeans once regarded as ideal for gastric upsets.

Indeed, not so long ago, even ordinary bread owed its distinctive taste and consistency to microbial liaisons. The traditional baker's yeast or "barm" passed from baker to baker was found in the 1950s to consist not only of the conventional baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae but at least one other yeast, as well as one or more bacterial species. By cooperating, this microbial syndicate fermented a greater number of carbohydrates than any of the various microbial components alone. The bread that resulted was surely like nothing you can buy today.

Today's commercial ginger beer is also much altered, purged of both its alcohol and its symbiotic liaisons. It is possible that Ward's own lovingly reconstituted ginger-beer plant survived into the 1940s. Max Walters, now 82, says he made and drank the stuff in the Botany School at Cambridge just after the Second World War. But no one knows what happened to it after that. • Gail Vines

28 September 2002 Gail Vines Magazine issue 2362 New Scientist