Why Noah Planted A Vineyard Poem by gershon hepner

Before they invented the wheel
human beings learned booze made them feel
far greater than they felt without it,
and alcohol very soon touted
as best of all calorie sources,
as later fresh hay was for horses.
We’re told in the Bible of menaces
strong drink may present, and in Genesis
we learn the first thing Noah planted
was a vine, and that when he decanted
the wine he produced he got high,
which caused serious problems Now but why
he chose to plant vineyards is clear.
Teetotalers no more should sneer
at Noah. He wasn’t demented,
deriving from juice he fermented
cheaper calories than those he’d obtained
from spinach his sons had complained
tasted awful, as all children do.
Old Noah assuredly knew
the advantage of calories cheaper
than those that a sower or reaper
obtains from his barley or wheat,
unless drunk as whisky that’s neat
or brewed into beer. Let’s praise
father Noah, who in distant days,
taught mankind the value of wine,
a calorie-cheap way to dine
unless it’s prepared in a chateau,
of which there were none in the bateau
he sailed in. His Ark, although vintage,
had drinks with a zero percentage
of alcohol, Commanded to drive
uninfluenced by any liquor
that might make the Ark driver shiqqer,
he found working for God without salary’s
no fun if you don’t get some calories
from alcohol, which he soon got
from grapes grown from vines on his lot,
once he’d parked by a rainbow, God’s sign
that looked fabulous while he drank wine.

Inspired by a new item reported by Frank Thadeusz on January 3,2010:
Did our Neolithic ancestors turn to agriculture so that they could be sure of a tipple? US Archaeologist Patrick McGovern thinks so. The expert on identifying traces of alcohol in prehistoric sites reckons the thirst for a brew was enough of an incentive to start growing crops. It turns out the fall of man probably didn't begin with an apple. More likely, it was a handful of mushy figs that first led humankind astray. Here is how the story likely began - a prehistoric human picked up some dropped fruit from the ground and popped it unsuspectingly into his or her mouth. The first effect was nothing more than an agreeably bittersweet flavor spreading across the palate. But as alcohol entered the bloodstream, the brain started sending out a new message - whatever that was, I want more of it!
Humankind's first encounters with alcohol in the form of fermented fruit probably occurred in just such an accidental fashion. But once they were familiar with the effect, archaeologist Patrick McGovern believes, humans stopped at nothing in their pursuit of frequent intoxication. A secure supply of alcohol appears to have been part of the human community's basic requirements much earlier than was long believed. As early as around 9,000 years ago, long before the invention of the wheel, inhabitants of the Neolithic village Jiahu in China were brewing a type of mead with an alcohol content of 10 percent, McGovern discovered recently. McGovern analyzed clay shards found during excavations in China's Yellow River Valley at his Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The bearded archaeologist is recognized around the world as an expert when it comes to identifying traces of alcoholic drinks on prehistoric finds. He ran so-called liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry on the clay remnants from Asia and found traces of tartaric acid - one of the main acids present in wine - and beeswax in the shards' pores. It appears that prehistoric humans in China combined fruit and honey into an intoxicating brew.


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