Chicha from the great beyond

The basic recipe for beer goes something like this.You take starch from a cereal grain (the fruit of a domesticated species of Poaceae, or Grass family), use enzymes to convert that starch into sugar, feed the sugar to a microbe capable of fermentation (such as a yeast or bacteria), which then poops out alcohol and carbon dioxide. It’s a beautiful process. You see the barley – brewer’s yeast – hops combo all the time. But why be so predictable?

Soy beans, the magical fruit

Soy is everywhere. But how does it get there? And how did we figure out so many things to do with it?