ABSTRACT
Before the eighteenth century, the technology in the food industry was empirical, without the basis of scientific formation (Parisier, 1974; Peterson, 1968, 1975). In fact, science did not play a role in food technology until the nineteenth century, when biologists first interpreted fermentation and the role of yeast. In 1680, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered yeast cells in beer but did not recognize them as living organisms, nor did he associate them with fermentation (Schlenk, 1997). In 1697, Georg Ernst Stahl suggested that fermentation was not a chemical process. One hundred years later, Antoine Lavoisier confirmed Stahl’s point of view. In 1837, Theodor Schwann, F.T. Kutzing and C. Cagniard Latour observed the yeast multiplication mechanism, which was a biological phenomenon. Two years later, T. Schwann discovered the sporeforming capacity of yeast. In 1843, Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Justus Liebig theorized that fermentation was “the decomposition of an albuminoide.” This theory was dominant until 1876, the year in which Louis Pasteur published his study on beer. In this work, Pasteur proved that yeast is a living organism. In 1890, Emil Fischer and Eduard Buchner proved the
biochemical basis of fermentation, pointing out the enzyme production by yeast. With this discovery, fermentation technology advanced by means of scientific reasoning.
