Arguably you can trace back origins of BBQ to the colonist learning cooking methods of the American Indians.
The "plainer" foods such as meatloaf/mash/green beans is not really American. That is the foods settlers ate in Europe.
To me, American cuisine is like so many things American - we take basic foods and experiment the hell out of it to produce varieties of what was once very simple food. Cajun is a good example, BBQ another. Craft beer is a fine example of Americans willingness to stray from traditions and do new things.
I'm with you until you started talking craft beer--beer has been crafted since the monks in Belgium and before.
They've had beer since Sumer. Read your Bible.. Noah gave the world wine.
Tell him--don't tell me, I think that is what I posted--
since the monks in Belgium and before.
The first chemically confirmed barley beer dates back to the 5th millennium BC in Iran, and was recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and spread throughout the world. Though, the ancient Chinese artifacts suggested that beer brewed with grapes, honey, hawthorns, and rice were produced as far back as 7,000 BC.
History of beer - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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Just sayin... I am a serious beer aficionado. Been a craft homebrewer since the 90s.
The first recorded beer brewing was indeed in Egypt. Hieroglyphics on tomb walls show the process of brewing of what had to be beer. It showed clear pictures of grains/fire under the pots and leaving the liquid in open containers.
You can make beer this way now, but it is pretty awful. Wild yeast produce very funky and/or sour flavors.
Maybe it was safer than the drinking water.
Absolutely, and is why wine and beer was made.
Beer is an incredible drink with history like no other.
It is even attributed to what made civilization even possible. Clean potable water was essential for early man to be able to travel across areas that had little water sources. So they began growing grains to brew beer for men to travel and trade/settle.
Did you know that early ship voyages discovered many Islands/lands because they needed to find grains to make beer so searched high and low for lands to stop and gather grains... it's true.