FERMENTATION 



2153 



FERNIE 



take to finance the project for Castile; she 

 therefore furnished three little ships and offered 

 to pledge her jewels, if necessary. Columbus' 

 discoveries made them sovereigns of a new 

 land, and eventually made Spain the first 

 power in the world. After the death of Isabella 

 in 1504 Ferdinand added to his kingdom both 

 Naples and Navarre. 



FERMENTATION, fer men ta 1 shun, a chem- 

 ical change which takes place in animal or 

 vegetable matter through the action of certain 

 organisms called ferments. One of the familiar 

 examples of fermentation is the action of yeast 

 in bread dough. Yeast, which is a form of 

 plant life and one of the most important fer- 

 ments, changes the starch in the flour to sugar, 

 and then decomposes the sugar into carbon 

 dioxide and alcohol. This process is shown in 

 the bubbles of gas which honeycomb a mass 

 of dough that has been set to "rise." The 

 souring of milk, the change of apple juice to 

 hard cider and of sweetened water to vinegar, 

 the ripening of cheese, the decaying of fruit 

 and the putrefying of meat, are other illustra- 

 tions of fermentation. 



Fermentation also plays an important part in 

 the digestion of food. Gastric juice contains 

 two ferments, rennin and pepsin. The former 

 acts by curdling milk, and the latter by soften- 

 ing the albumin of food so that it will dissolve 

 in water and be absorbed into the blood. 

 When harmful germs of fermentation are taken 

 into the body the acid of the gastric juice 

 destroys them, but if, for some reason, the acid 

 is too weak to do its work, these germs, by 

 the process of fermentation, turn the food 

 sour, and the result is an attack of indigestion. 



Fermentation is one of nature's wonderful 

 schemes of economy. Plants obtain all their 

 food from the ground and air. When a plant 

 dies it is due to numerous little germs which 

 begin the process of decay; the result is that 

 the plant returns to the ground and air to be 

 used again in the growth of other plants. 



The subject of fermentation directly con- 

 cerns the housewife who is confronted with the 

 task of keeping the food that comes into the 

 home sweet and wholesome; that is, free from 

 harmful fermenting agents. Some of the 

 most familiar devices for preserving household 

 foodstuffs are quite simple. Foods are placed 

 in various containers that they may be pro- 

 tected from dirt, flies and other forms of 

 contamination; bread is always covered so 

 it will not become moldy, etc. Before the ice 

 box became so common the old-fashioned well 



was utilized as a storage house, milk, butter 

 and other perishable foods being suspended 

 in it on account of its coolness. Now the 

 household refrigerator is everywhere used for 

 keeping foods sweet in the warm season. The 

 ice box itself may become a source of con- 

 tamination, however, if not kept scrupulously 

 clean. A neglected corner swarming with 

 germs may easily cause milk to turn sour or 

 butter to spoil. 



Fruits, vegetables' and meats that are canned, 

 pickled or preserved are insured against fer- 

 mentation by being sterilized and sealed in 

 air-tight, sterilized jars or containers. Certain 

 standard preservatives are in common use in 

 household canning; that is, spice and vinegar 

 for fruits, salt for vegetables, salt, spice and 

 vinegar for pickled goods, and salt and spice 

 for meats. Another device for preserving foods 

 is immersion in oil or fat. This is illustrated 

 when the housewife pours a spoonful of olive 

 oil on top of a jar of pickles or a bottle of 

 olives. In the commercial world the preserva- 

 tion of foods has reached a high degree of 

 efficiency; this is told in the articles COLD 

 STORAGE; FOOD PRODUCTS, PRESERVATION OF; 

 MEAT AND MEAT PACKING. J.F.S. 



FERMENTED LIQUORS , fer ment ' ed lik ' erz, 

 a term that includes alcoholic beverages ob- 

 tained by fermentation, as distinguished from 

 spirituous liquors, which are the result of dis- 

 tillation. The sugar in the juice of fruits 

 is turned to alcohol by fermentation. Grapes 

 so treated furnish wine; ale and beer are 

 made by the fermentation of an infusion of 

 starchy grains which have been previously 

 malted, the starch being turned into dextrin in 

 the process. Cider is made from the fer- 

 mented juice of apples; mead, the favorite 

 drink of the hardy Norsemen of old, is made 

 from honey. The natives of South Africa 

 make a kind of beer called twala from fer- 

 mented kafir corn. Indians of South America 

 make a liquor named chica from corn, and 

 the Kirghiz, inhabiting the steppes of Central 

 Asia, drink kumiss made of fermented mares' 

 milk. See ALCOHOLIC DRINKS; DISTILLATION; 

 FERMENTATION. 



FERNIE, fer'ni, the county town and the 

 provincial police headquarters for East Koote- 

 nay district, British Columbia, noted for its 

 immense coal-mining industry, which employs 

 about 1,500 men and has an average annual 

 output of 1,500,000 tons. It is situated near 

 the Elk River, in the extreme southeastern 

 corner of the province, fifty miles west of the 



