Scientists check a standard technique for fermenting yogurt… utilizing ants.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
What if I informed you ants would possibly be capable to make scrumptious yogurt? NPR’s Regina Barber studies on a examine out of Denmark that put a standard fermenting technique to the check.
REGINA BARBER, BYLINE: Think about you are strolling within the mountains of Bulgaria, having fun with the plush greenery, the clear streams. And the explanation you are up there? To make yogurt the old school means – by dropping reside pink wooden ants into recent milk.
VERONICA SINOTTE: We added 4 entire ants, dropped them into the highest, lined it with a cheesecloth, hiked up the mountain and buried it inside the ant colony.
BARBER: That is Veronica Sinotte, a microbial ecologist and lead writer of the examine. Sinotte was a part of a small crew that did this out of doors experiment after which hiked again up the mountain the subsequent day to present it a style. The analysis crew stated the yogurt was simply barely clumpy on the backside of the jar, barely tangy and herby, and it tasted very totally different from what you purchase within the grocery store. That is as a result of the ants have their very own microbiome that features lactic acid utilized in fermentation.
Within the U.S., all industrial manufacturers of yogurt style actually comparable as a result of they’re made just about the identical means, utilizing solely two industrial bacterial starters. However this wasn’t all the time the case, says Leonie Johanna Jahn, a microbiologist and co-author of the examine printed in iScience.
LEONIE JOHANNA JAHN: Historically, yogurt has been fermented with advanced microbial communities, leading to very particular flavors and textures which might be distinctive perhaps to particular particular person or family.
BARBER: Which implies that, relying on which home locally was making the yogurt, it might style and perhaps even look totally different. Jahn was a part of the analysis crew that fermented yogurt a barely totally different means within the lab utilizing crushed pink wooden ants. Jahn stated this lab yogurt was thicker and tangier than the mountain yogurt – she stated like Greek yogurt. The researchers wished to know what sorts of micro organism have been inflicting this fermentation – micro organism residing on and contained in the pink wooden ants. And Sinotte says a type of micro organism is definitely fairly well-known.
SINOTTE: This is not actually present in yogurt past our examine, nevertheless it’s present in two locations on the earth – ants and sourdough bread.
BARBER: Particularly, the San Francisco sourdough bread. The ant yogurt within the lab was additional utilized by cooks from the two-star Michelin restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen. They turned the ant yogurt right into a decadent ice cream sandwich.
ANNE MADDEN: This morning, after I awakened, I did not assume that I’d finish the day by craving a ice cream sandwich made with ants, however now I’m.
BARBER: That is Anne Madden, chief scientist at The Microbe Institute. She did not work on the examine, however she has labored with bugs utilized in fermentation. She was a part of a earlier scientific examine that discovered the identical lactic acid yeast utilized in bitter beer brewing on the physique of wasps. Madden was impressed by the interdisciplinary nature of this ant examine – anthropologists, biologists and cooks all working collectively to make one thing new from one thing previous.
MADDEN: These pink wooden ants are recognized for producing formica acid, or formic acid, which is peppery. And so I need to know if that ice cream sandwich is peppery and what different flavors might need been made doable by the ants and the microbes.
BARBER: Some folks within the U.S. would possibly grimace on the thought of consuming one thing ants have been swimming in, however the researchers have been unfazed, saying that consuming bugs may be very regular across the globe. David Zilber is a former chef at Noma in Copenhagen and a fellow researcher on this examine. He factors out that there is a little bit of a double commonplace in relation to shopper cringe elements.
DAVID ZILBER: The greens of their crisper are grown in manure.
BARBER: Zilber additionally thinks this examine can provide a brand new perspective on what we name meals and what we name pests.
ZILBER: It actually makes you concentrate on the boundarylessness of nature and the way fuzzy life will be and that what you assume is a contaminant is definitely one thing you could make one thing you like.
BARBER: Scientists say this examine is a chance to attach our previous with our future, making new sorts of fermented meals utilizing data from hundreds of years in the past. Regina Barber, NPR Information.
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