To be a historian is to be ever-curious
Revisiting what we know, and learning new things.
This week, my newsletter was cited in Jen Blair’s fantastic beer-centric newsletter in an issue all about myths and misinformation. There are a lot of things I could say about misinformation this week outside the food space. But I’m exhausted, frankly: So here’s a link to the newsletter issue I wrote about evaluating resources.
If you aren’t already subscribed to Jen’s newsletter, by the way, you should be: She shares an absolute wealth of information AND encourages us to think critically about our own blind spots in the beer industry, and in food and beverage in general. I’m a huge fan.
In this same issue was a piece by Audrey Morgan about the history of beer and witchcraft, which got me excited, but maybe not for the reason you’d expect:
It got me excited because it’s a chance to look at my old views and research in light of new evidence.
In Our Fermented Lives, I talk a lot about how the history of fermentation is often the history of people who were under appreciated and whose lives were under-documented: To use the example of beer, women have always been a part of brewing, though what exactly that looks like (and where it has been documented) has changed over time.
Women today are still a minority in the world of craft brewing, but despite that, women have always been and always will be a part of brewing history. And have not always had an easy time of it.
So why am I bringing up this witchcraft article?
When I was writing Our Fermented Lives, I included a short section on women and brewing in Europe and, based on research and on interviews I conducted with various experts, spent a paragraph or so talking about women brewers being associated with witchcraft.
I researched this particular section of the book, and did my interviews before I even landed my book contract (which, I know, bold move on my part): And it was after the book was out that I found other research that, in essence, says there isn’t much evidence in favor of this particular theory in contemporary legal records (like, for example, records of witchcraft trials in Europe).
For more, see Tara Nurin’s A Woman’s Place is in the Brewhouse and Dr. Christina Wade’s work, including her new book, The Devil’s in the Draught Lines.
Learning something new always excites me, and this time was no different: Particularly since women and beer brewing is something I’ve touched on in talks and in my writing (albeit briefly), and I want to give people the right information.
For researchers, our sense of the truth is not a static, immovable wall, but rather a building we craft together over time: Adding new bricks as each of us connects new dots or makes new discoveries.
And in this case? The more folks look at the history of women and brewing, the more we aren’t seeing evidence of a connection between women brewers and witchcraft.
It makes me all the more excited for the potential of, some day, hopefully creating a new edition of Our Fermented Lives: Precisely so I can go back and revisit my research and bring in updates as I continue to conduct, and learn from, new research. The world of fermentation research, and the world of food history (and Food Studies generally) often bring us new insights: and a book is a snapshot in time of a certain topic in a certain moment.
They’re amazing because they’re time-bound but also in other ways timeless, all at once.
I love how each new thing I learn contributes to an ever-more complete picture of a subject (and if you want to see more about how I evaluate sources, it’s a great chance to revisit my article on sources from a couple weeks ago).
And I get to learn from others, constantly. It’s exciting, dynamic, challenging, and most of all: It’s fun. I think there’s a tendency to recoil or resist when we learn a new piece of information that counters something we thought we knew (especially if we’ve shared that knowledge publicly, as in a book) BUT reading this article was, for me, instead a reminder that being a researcher and a person who loves to learn means allowing your ideas and knowledge to evolve. So, now that I’ve gotten to learn more about this little slice of fermentation history, I’m sharing it with you, too!
Give this piece in Food & Wine a read, and Nurin and Wade’s books if you want to go deeper: it’s a fascinating history, a reminder of our evolving understanding of the many histories that make up our collective culinary history, and a reminder to always approach our work with open minds and a willingness to learn.
What new research are you most excited about right now?
