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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from south-central Chile and south-west Argentina

Muday (Mapuche grain chicha)muday

Muday, also called mushka, is the maize drink of the Mapuche. Dry maize is ground, swollen with water, ground again and kneaded, and in the past the women chewed the dough to sweeten it with saliva. The dough is boiled, cooled until lukewarm and left to ferment in a large vessel, and the drink is made for ceremonies, festivals and burials. Hanseniaspora uvarum and a commercial baker's strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the only yeasts isolated from araucaria-seed mudai does most of the fermenting.

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Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold and ceremonial brewing with no fixed amounts; the account gives the method, not quantities.
Dry maize grains · Ground and sieved[cona1930]
Water · Used to swell the meal, to knead it and to cook it[cona1930]
Saliva, in the past · The women chewed the dough before cooking; this is no longer done[cona1930]
Apple chicha (optional) · Mixed in, when there was any, for a livelier fermentation and more volume[cona1930]
Starter: spontaneous; formerly salivary enzymes from chewing; apple chicha could be added
Start
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What changes: Dry maize is ground on a stone and sieved

Step 1 of 5
Grind and sieve the dry maize
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts

Output: maize meal.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Muday is boiled from a kneaded maize dough, not from malted grain, and in the past its starch was broken down by chewing. Like other traditional Chilean chichas it was fermented only briefly and drunk low in alcohol, often before fermentation was over.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Piñón mudaiMade by cooking and fermenting the seeds of Araucaria araucana (piñones); still made and used in Mapuche ceremonies.
  • Wheat mudayMade from wheat grain instead of maize.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Pascual Coña, a Mapuche cacique, described how muday was made and used in his autobiography, recorded by Ernesto Wilhelm de Moesbach and published in 1930. Archaeological finds point to the fermentation of araucaria seeds in the Andean forests of Patagonia.

  1. [cona1930] Coña P., de Moesbach E.W. 1930, Vida y costumbres de los indígenas araucanos en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, Santiago, Imprenta Cervantes, chapter VII section 4 "Muday", pp. 145–146 (Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, MC0008879)archive
  2. [rodriguez2014] Rodríguez M.E., Pérez-Través L., Sangorrín M.P., Barrio E., Lopes C.A. 2014, Saccharomyces eubayanus and Saccharomyces uvarum associated with the fermentation of Araucaria araucana seeds in Patagonia, FEMS Yeast Research 14:948–965 (abstract)paper
  3. [mitsi2024] Mitsi C., Echeverría J. 2024, Fermented beverages in prehispanic Chile, a comprehensive review of their phytochemistry, traditional medicinal uses, bioactivity, and social aspects, Frontiers in Pharmacology 15:1505873paper
  4. [s1] Wikipedia (es), 'Muday' (outline only)wiki